Two Roads Diverged
by Zebra Wallpaper
Summary: Years after a falling out, Cory and Shawn reconnect in New York City and help each other through some pretty big changes. Post-Series. Cory/Shawn. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** _My earlier BMW stand-alone fics "Idiot Savant" and "Average Boy" can be read as the backstories to this much longer work. You do not have to have read those, however, to follow this one. _

_I'll be posting chapters one or two at a time over the next couple weeks. Any feedback from you guys is much appreciated-I'd love to hear what you're thinking about the plot and characterizations as the story goes on._

_This story takes place about eight years after the end of the series, so roughly 2008/2009. It does start out on kind of a depressing note, but I promise it picks up and gets a lot more fun as it goes along (at least to my mind)._

* * *

Christmas dinner that year is even worse than Cory thought it would be. Morgan's doing study abroad and having the time of her life in New Zealand and Eric's spending the holiday with his new in-laws in Seattle. Josh is there, thank goodness-seeing him is the only bright spot of the trip-but even he doesn't want to be there. He's just playing with his food and counting down the minutes until he's excused to go over to his friend Milo's house and compare gifts.

For the four grown-ups at the table, it's an uncomfortable meal of Amy and Topanga discussing the fertility treatments in terms too technical for Josh to understand and Alan looking concerned as Cory explains how, for the third time in four years, he's been laid off again. Topanga discusses injections and mind-bogglingly costly drugs and Cory rambles about corporate mergers and downsizing.

"You've got to find a way to make yourself indispensable," Alan says, as if it's something Cory's never considered. Cory nods patronizingly and stands up to get more wine.

As he heads into the kitchen, he can hear Topanga explaining that Cory's job loss doesn't mean they're in any danger of losing the roof over their heads-her job keeps them comfortable and she's still on track to make partner within the next year.

"With kids, though, there's never enough money," Amy says.

In the kitchen, Cory pours himself a generous glass of merlot and sips it while standing over the sink. He plucks some cashews from an open tin on the counter and eats them while looking out at Feeny's house. The Feenys have gone to Hawaii for the holidays, news which Cory found both sweet and amusing. He thinks maybe next year, he'll push Topanga to go for something similar. No family, no uncomfortable conversations. Just the two of them on a beach somewhere. They haven't had a real vacation together since their Honeymoon. Topanga has mentioned planning something for their tenth anniversary, but that's still a few years off. Cory wonders if they need to do something sooner than that.

When he heads back to the dining room, the mood has changed. Topanga looks more excited than she has in months.

"Cory," she says, "you didn't tell me about Shawn."

"Shawn?" Cory hasn't said that name out loud in ages. "What about him?"

"That he's writing those books," Topanga turns back to Amy, "What are they called again?"

"Cheaty O'Zero. You know, Cory, the kids books. Josh and all his friends have been reading them. They said in the paper they're gonna make a movie."

Cory sits back down in his seat, confused. The world of popular literature is about as far off his radar as it gets these days. The name sounds familiar, though. He seems to remember seeing a display at the bookshop in the airport. "What are they about?"

"They're like Harry Potter," Amy says but Josh corrects her.

"No they're not."

Amy smiles. "Okay, they're not like Harry Potter. There's no wizards or magic. They're mysteries. They're very fun."

"You've read them?"

"Oh, yes. Everybody is. They're bestsellers."

Cory is dumbfounded taking all this in. He doesn't even notice that Josh has left the table and run up the stairs to his room.

"You know," Amy says, "George Feeny was asking if you couldn't maybe approach Shawn and see if he'd like to come to Josh's school-your old school-and talk to the kids. It would be really great for them."

"Feeny'd probably have better luck than I would contacting him. We haven't talked in years."

"I thought you said last Christmas you were going to get in touch with him?"

"Yeah, well," Cory shrugs. Things have turned awkward again. Beside him, Topanga has regained the tense posture that's become her standard body language.

The moment is interrupted as Josh returns and shoves a paperback into Cory's hands. "Do you think you could get him to sign it?" Josh asks.

Cory looks down at the colorful book. _Cheaty O'Zero and the Missing Mircrochips _is emblazoned above a cartoony drawing of a boy on skateboard being followed by a looming, shadowy figure. In smaller font along the bottom of the cover is the name _S.P. Hunter_. Cory runs a finger over the embossed letters.

"If you let me borrow it, I'll see what I can do," he tells Josh, who seems satisfied and then asks if he can go to Milo's now.

* * *

That night, Topanga sleeps beside him in her eyemask and flannel pajamas. They're off to Pittsburgh bright and early tomorrow to go through the whole routine again with her mother. Topanga, doing exactly what should be done, as always, is asleep before 9:30. Cory stays up late, though, reading the Cheaty O'Zero book.

He hadn't known quite what to expect, but he's pleasantly surprised. The book is fun and a page-turner. It's also _funny._ And even though he's operating in a kiddie/genre mode, Shawn's voice is unmistakable. It doesn't hurt that the hero of the series, Cheaty, is an orphan kid from a trailer park who uses his street smarts to solve mysteries around Philadelphia. He also has a loyal sidekick/best friend, Kevin, who comes from a good neighborhood and whose family practically adopts Cheaty. The two of them even have a wise teacher/mentor figure who talks exactly like George Feeny. Somehow Shawn turned their childhood into a kids bestseller and it's the most enjoyable thing Cory's read in ages.

He finishes the book around 2 a.m. but finds he can't sleep after that. He lays awake until morning, thinking about Shawn.

The next day, Topanga's annoyed about having to do all the driving to Pittsburgh-rental cars make her nervous-but Cory pretends he doesn't notice. He puts his seat back and sleeps on the drive but doesn't dream about anything happy.

They fly back to California the next afternoon and Cory buys up all the other Cheaty O'Zero titles available at the airport bookshop. Even Topanga closes her laptop long enough to read through one on the plane and admits that it's a surprisingly good read. "He's got a goldmine with this series," she muses, opening up her case files once again.

Cory agrees, but when he finishes his second book he doesn't want to appear too obsessed so he just flips the book over in his lap. The enigmatic single line author bio on the back cover stares at him for the rest of the flight: _S.P. Hunter lives in New York._

* * *

Topanga is crying tears of frustration again. Cory's holding her but he doesn't know if he can take much more of this. It has been years now, years that they've been on this obsessive, heartbreaking quest and all it's done is made them miserable. Cory always assumed he'd have kids, but he never thought they'd go through anything like this. For the millionth time he wonders if anything could possibly be worth this much unhappiness.

But Topanga has never given up on anything. 700 A's in high school, beating out hundreds of other applicants for the most prestigious internship in New York, partner by thirty...she would die before she failed at something human beings have been doing since the dawn of their existence. And so it has taken over their lives. They're pouring enormous amounts of money into specialists and treatments and it has become the only topic they've really talked about for the past two years. Every other aspect of their lives has remained on hold, waiting for this part to be settled first. Every decision, from Cory's job search to his beer consumption is discussed and debated in terms of how it might effect Project: Have a Baby. Their sex life has become an elaborately regimented activity that Topanga takes notes on like a laboratory experiment. She crafts spreadsheets and reports the details to her team of doctors. Cory has started to dread it. He feels like he's just an instrument in some never ending failed experiment. He doesn't tell her this, though. He wants to support her. Support them. He wants what she wants and he wants her to be happy, but he can't shake the fact that he feels tremendously alone.

If he's being truthful, though, Cory knows it's not just this that's making him feel miserable and depressed. He hasn't been happy in a long time. Ever since college he's felt like he's been trying and failing to find his place, whether through a job or through his personal life, but nothing has ever clicked. He's been frustrated for a while now that he's had no purpose in life other than potential inseminator and supportive spouse of Topanga Lawrence-Matthews, rising legal star at Sutter, Stone & Associates. He has no friends in Orange County, has had no one, really, but Topanga. And he wonders, the last couple of months especially, if he even has her anymore. He doesn't remember the last time they laughed about anything. He can't recall the last time they had an intimate conversation that didn't revolve around Project Baby.

He misses her. And he misses who he used to be.

"Hey," he says as he watches her wipe her eyes and carefully reconstruct her composure, "I've been thinking maybe we should take a trip."

Topanga makes a face. "We just came back from Philadelphia. And I'm being sent to Flagstaff again next month." She has now completely erased any evidence of having been crying and is slipping out of her bathrobe and into her clothes for work.

"No," Cory says, leaning against the door jamb of the closet as she dresses, "Not like that kind of trip. Like a vacation. Just you and I."

Topanga tosses him a patronizing smile and then turns her attention from her suit to her jewelry. "That sounds great, but I have no idea when I'd be able to take any time off work. Besides, we really need to watch what we're spending. I want to start another round of injections as soon as possible."

"Topanga," he says, turning her to face him, "I mean it. I really think it's important. We need to have some time together. Some time away from here and away from all this stuff." He waves his hand to the side, as if physically pushing away their problems.

And Topanga looks at him then and it's like the first time she's actually seen him in months. She doesn't say anything, just looks into his eyes. Then she smiles a real smile this time.

"Let's find a way to do it, then."

Cory's heart leaps. "Really?"

"Yes. How about New York?"

"New York?"

"I love New York. We spent the best time there. I want to go back to all our old places, see my friends from NYU."

Cory remembers Central Park, that coffee shop near NYU, their tiny apartment. He remembers being young and happy. "Okay. Let's do New York."

He follows Topanga to the front door as she gathers up her laptop and paperwork, grabs her car keys. "Let me talk to Bob when I get into work. I'll see what I can work out time-wise."

"Okay."

"Love you," she plants a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Love you too."

Cory sighs as the door closes behind her. Then he is surprised as it immediately opens again and she pokes her head in. "You know what you should do?"

He smiles. "What?"

"Get in touch with Shawn."

The smile drops off Cory's face. Topanga continues, "Just send him an email. Tell him you're coming to New York for a bit. See if he wants to get together."

"I don't know about that..."

"Oh, come on. It's an email. The worst thing that'll happen is he says no. And if he says yes, then you meet up for dinner, catch up. No big deal."

Cory's unease is palpable and Topanga rolls her eyes. "Listen, Cory, you've never forgiven yourself for falling out with Shawn. It's worth a shot, right? One little email? At least you can say you tried."

He doesn't say anything, but she smiles anyway, knowing that she's convinced him. "Gotta go," she says and ducks back out the door.

He stands alone in the foyer for a few minutes, waiting to see if she's going to pop back in again. When it's clear that isn't going to happen, he sighs and shuffles back into the house proper, ready to start another rotten day spent in his pajamas.

* * *

Cory sits in front of his laptop, still in his pajamas but now with a beer. He's pulled up all his bookmarked job hunting sites as he does every morning, but there's nothing more exciting there today than there has been yesterday and the day before and the day before that. So he opens another tab and Googles Shawn.

He's surprised at the number of pages that immediately come up. Links to buy the books at Amazon, reviews, fan pages about the characters. There's not a single picture of Shawn anywhere, though. Cory clicks on an official-looking website and finds that it's the promotional website for the Cheaty O'Zero series, put out by the publisher. He wades through animations and games and information about upcoming titles in the series. Finally, he finds a link with a little form where readers can write to S.P. Hunter.

Feeling a little bit stupid-the form is obviously designed for eight-year-olds to compose fan letters-he starts to fill in the form. Then he stops. He finishes his beer, gets another one from the fridge and returns to the computer.

Fuck it. It's better than cruising the job sites again.

_Dear Shawn_, he begins, _It's been a really long time but I hope this message finds you well..._


	2. Chapter 2

Topanga arranges to take a week off as soon as she finishes work on the Perry case. She excitedly begins calling friends from New York and setting up tentative plans to be firmed up once she knows the exact dates of her visit. Cory is glad to see her so happy, but he feels a little bit disappointed that their romantic getaway is rapidly turning into a series of catch-up dinners and drinks with Topanga's old friends from law school. Part of him can't help but suspect that she is, consciously or not, doing it on purpose to avoid having to spend that much time away and alone with him. Maybe she's feeling that lack of connection as much as he is. Maybe she's scared about it too. Maybe she's also started to suspect this may be the beginning of the end.

He's also a little bothered that it's been more than a week now and he hasn't received any reply from Shawn. There's many logical reasons he can think of for this, but he just keeps coming back to the idea that the silence is intentional. He feels stupid for having made the attempt.

He's read all the Cheaty O'Zero books now. A couple times over. He reminds himself it's fiction and they're kids books, but still he scrutinizes them for any sense of who Shawn is now, how he feels about that friendship he's now using as fodder for his stories. Cory re-reads every scene with Kevin (Cory's fictional counterpart) to try and figure out how Shawn feels about him these days, after everything, after all these years of radio silence. But the prose is maddeningly light and lacking in any obvious psychological subtext.

Since discovering the books, though, Cory's found memories of Shawn sneaking into the corners of his daily life, popping into his head when he least expects them. While filling the coffee maker with water, he suddenly remembers sledding with Shawn after a big snowfall when they were kids. Shawn's coat was too short on his arms, exposing a stretch of pale wrist between his cuffs and his mittens. They were laughing so hard that day they both came home hoarse and Shawn caught a cold. He got to stay home from school for a week and Cory brought him his homework each afternoon. They curled up together in Chet's big armchair, watching TV like it was perfectly natural. Then Cory caught the cold and they did the whole thing in reverse, Shawn bringing Cory's homework to the Matthews' house, playing Nintendo with him under a pile of blankets and kleenex boxes on the couch. He remembers the feeling of Shawn's hip, warm and bony beside him, so comforting when he felt like crap and everyone else was staying a mile away from him.

Brushing his teeth, the image of Shawn telling him what sex was like, the day after their prom night, pops into his head. Shawn kept his head bowed slightly while talking, as if he could hide a bit under his brow. There was a pink flush that ran the length of his cheek bones all the way to the top of his ears. "It's incredible," he said, his voice low and earnest, "I've never felt so close to someone."

Taking out the trash, he suddenly sees Shawn at 19, laughing with that beautiful smile. Typing out a cover letter to a potential employer, the vision of Shawn's chest jerking spasmodically the first time Cory gave him a handjob interrupts as he writes _I believe that my experience and expertise make me the ideal candidate..._Drifting off to what he now thinks of as his "mid-afternoon depression nap," he is wide awake again in seconds, having been met with memory of what Shawn looked like when they fought that last time, the last day that Cory ever saw him. So much anger and hurt and disappointment. All the times he'd seen Shawn react to the awful things people did to him, Cory had never seen him look like that.

He'd worked very hard for several years after that terrible day to actively stop thinking about Shawn, stop wondering where he's gone and who he's with, stop running through all the possibilities of what might have been, stop feeling guilty for the lies Cory told everyday that Shawn recognized better than anyone. But now all of that is back and Cory is surprised to find that he doesn't mind. He's missed Shawn a lot, even as a ghost.

* * *

Topanga is prattling on about her old friend Jim, the corporate lawyer, the gay one (Cory remembers nothing else about him) and all the things that he's been up to since she last saw him. Cory is only half paying attention, focused more on making sure he doesn't burn the risotto and remembering how Shawn referred to fried spam sandwiches as "an old Hunter family recipe." He often made them when he was upset about something-trailer park comfort food-and they were vile. Cory can still smell them and his stomach turns at the memory.

"So they're flying him out to Hong Kong next week and putting him up there for the duration of the merger, which'll probably be a month or two at least."

"That's great," Cory says and snaps off the gas, moving the pot to a cool burner.

Topanga hesitates, realizing that he hasn't really been listening, then continues on, a little less excited. "Anyway, the point is, his apartment is going to be empty and he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of getting a subletter for such a short amount of time."

"Yeah, that must be a pain," Cory is plating things up. He pauses, looking for the oven mitt he just had and Topanga hands it to him without needing to ask.

"He said we're welcome to stay there while we're in New York. He'll leave a key with the doorman."

"Oh," Cory says, finally looking at her, "That's great! We won't have to pay for a hotel."

"Mmm," Topanga sips her Chardonnay as he lays their plates down and sits beside her at the marble-topped island, "It's really sweet of him. And, you know, I was thinking...maybe you could fly out before me, have a little vacation for yourself too."

"What?"

"You know, just a little time to do whatever you want to do. Without me around. I think you could use a vacation more than anybody right now."

"I haven't done anything for the past three months."

"I think that's what you need a vacation from."

_That's just what I need_, Cory thinks, _more time alone. _But Topanga looks so proud of this suggestion, so sure that this is exactly what he needs. And how often has she ever been wrong? He starts to think that a little time away from his life might not be such a bad thing. He could see some movies, check out the museums, spend a little time pretending to be someone else for a while. It's not entirely unappealing.

"That's maybe not a bad idea."

"Good." She is pleased. "I'll have Gina book everything for you tomorrow."

"But you'll be coming out a week later?"

"Of course. As soon as I get this Perry stuff wrapped up, I am there."

He bumps his shoulder into her companionably and she giggles but doesn't bump him back.

* * *

New York is colder than he remembers it being. Cory buys a thicker hat and a better pair of gloves before he even leaves JFK, trying not to flinch too much at the inflated airport prices. But the cab ride to Manhattan makes him feel better. He always enjoys a good cab ride from an airport; it makes it feel like an adventure is about to begin. They have little TVs in the back of the passenger's seat now that play endless loops of commercials and New York city tourism ads, something that didn't exist the last time he was here. That's a little annoying. But he looks out as they cross the bridge and the buildings grow taller around him and it feels good.

Then there's a little beep from his phone, an email notification. He takes it out, desperately hoping that some hiring manager has finally decided that his resume is incredibly impressive and is getting in touch to set up an interview. The email address is one he doesn't recognize-this is good. But there's no subject line, which seems vaguely unprofessional in the half-second that he considers it. Then he gets to the body of the email and realizes it has nothing to do with a job application. It's an email from Shawn.

_Cory! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you..._

Shawn explains that his fan mail goes to his publicist's office and he seldom sees it himself but then an intern came across Cory's message and sent it his way, thinking he might want to hear from someone who seemed to actually know him. But he's glad because he'd love to see Cory when he's in New York, just tell him the dates.

Hardly able to breathe, Cory rereads the message twice, then types a reply message:

_I'm actually in a cab from JFK right now. In town for the next two weeks. When are you free?_

A minute later, the message notification beeps again.

_Tonight? If you've got other stuff going on, though, it's no big deal. We can figure out something else. _

Cory pauses, realizing he hasn't taken a real breath since this exchange started. Then he responds, honestly:

_I have nothing going on whatsoever. My plans involved buying a six-pack, putting on pajamas, and ordering pizza._

After an interminable minute, the notification beeps.

_Pizza and beer here. B. Y. O. Pajamas_

Shawn sends him the address and his cell phone number and Cory writes back that he'll be there around eight. Then the exchange comes to an end and Cory realizes he has about two hours to feel this nervous.

* * *

Jim's apartment is exactly what a set designer would create for a Manhattan corporate lawyer. It's super sleek, modern, and tasteful, six times the size of any New York apartment Cory's ever been in. He feels very nervous walking around the place and keeps all his things confined to a small pile near the foot of the bed. He texts Topanga to tell her he got in all right and knows she won't see it until a couple hours from now. He thinks about telling her that he's having dinner with Shawn but decides to hold off on that information for now. Somehow it doesn't quite seem real yet.

He still has an hour before he has to leave so he unpacks his toiletry bag and steps into Jim's enormous two-person shower. There are six different shower heads, which weirds him out a little, and he isn't sure if he's supposed to pick one to stand under or rotate from one to the next. When he gets out he starts to get dressed and while he's staring down his reflection he wonders just how much older he looks now than the last time Shawn saw him. He definitely has less hair and more gut. He wears glasses now all the time. He also dresses like a man ten years older, though he sort of always did, even as a teenager. And the frown lines in his head have settled in and made themselves at home.

The idea occurs to him that he can call Shawn and make an excuse to cancel. Because this is probably a terrible idea. They probably have nothing to say to each other and surely have nothing in common anymore. Shawn won't care about Cory's stupid problems. Shawn is rich and famous. This is still a ridiculous thought and Cory can't quite get used to it. He wonders if he shouldn't just push the dinner off a little longer, maybe even to a separate trip. Wouldn't it be better if Cory waited until he had a job again? And lost the weight he's put on since being unemployed? And gotten a decent haircut and some new glasses and more youthful clothes? Cory doesn't want to let his incredibly successful former best friend (_and lover_) see him looking so sad and middle aged. Topanga had told him he should get a haircut before their trip. Why didn't he get a haircut? Dammit, he's an idiot.

But still he dresses, heads downstairs, and has the doorman hail him a cab. It's too late now.

* * *

Cory is nervous as he stands in the lobby of Shawn's building. His heart is beating rapidly and his stomach feels queasy but in an excited, almost euphoric way. It's a physical sensation he hasn't felt for years. Since the last time he saw Shawn, actually. Cory feels guilty as he realizes this, then he consciously decides not to give a fuck. He is so tired of feeling bad about everything.

The building is shabbier and less hip than Cory has been expecting considering the kind of money Shawn must be pulling in. He waits uneasily while the doorman calls up to "Mr. Hunter" and he tries to shake the feeling that he's stumbled into some kind of Twilight Zone alternate reality. Then the doorman gives him a nod toward the elevator and Cory makes his way up to the 9th floor and to Shawn's apartment. He stands there for a long time before he knocks-two short raps. Then Shawn is there, six inches in front of him.

If it weren't for Shawn's eyes, Cory wouldn't recognize him. Shawn's hair is cut shorter than Cory has ever seen it-it actually looks like it was buzzed completely a month or two prior and is now in the early stages of growing back. With this he wears a full, unkempt beard that completely obscures his mouth and the shape of his face. He looks like a stranger, like a man who grew up someplace woodsy and believes in auras and chops his own firewood. But then he smiles and is instantly Shawn.

"Hey, Cor."

"Hi."

Shawn steps to the side and gestures extravagantly into the apartment. "Do come in."

The place is nice but small, more like the New York apartments Cory is familiar with than Jim's place, though still a far cry from the grubby student apartments everybody had during the time he lived here. It's sparsely furnished, though, with no pictures on the walls or discernable personal touches. Then Cory spies a cheaply framed photo of a Greyhound bus leaned up against a wall. It used to hang in the Hunters' trailer and Shawn has carted it around with him everywhere he has lived. Cory finds this reassuring. The same Shawn he knew is still in there somewhere.

Cory takes a seat on the sofa while Shawn gets a couple of beers and a bottle opener. Shawn's wearing a bathrobe over pajama pants and a sweater-he obviously hasn't felt the need to dress for the occasion-and at first Cory thinks that Shawn's put on weight. He looks very bulky and this is surprising since Shawn's always been so skinny. But then when he comes over to the sofa and takes a seat across from him, Cory realizes that Shawn's wearing at least four different shirts and sweaters on top of each other, all of them a few sizes too large. It's his old trick for appearing bigger and more substantial than he actually is. Cory wonders briefly why Shawn would have reason to go back to doing this, but he forgets the concern immediately because Shawn is handing him one of the beers and he's _right there in front of him. _God, he's missed him.

They sit there awkwardly, each sipping their beer. Cory racks his brain for something to say and comes up only with, "You're keeping your place clean these days, huh?"

"I have a housekeeper. This place would be disgusting if I didn't. You should have seen the rat's nest I was living in before I got my first advance. I think it would send you into a panic attack."

"Ah. Yeah, we had a housekeeper for a while. It's nice. We had to let her go, though. Save some bucks."

"Yeah. So, is Feeny...um..."

"No, no. He's fine. He's great. Just went to Hawaii. Actually, he wanted me to see if you'd consider going back to our grade school to give a talk. About the books."

"Aw, I dunno. I keep a pretty low profile. It's kinda part of the whole mystery thing."

"Okay, well, I said I'd ask, that's all. Oh, and Josh wanted me to see if you'd sign his book. But I just realized I left it in my suitcase."

"Sure thing," Shawn smiles shyly. He looks about as uncomfortable as Cory feels.

"Congrats, by the way," Cory offers, "All the books and everything. That's great."

"Thank you. And congrats to you guys, too. I heard Topanga's gonna be made a partner."

"How did you hear that?"

"Oh, I still talk to Angela sometimes. Once in a while."

"Oh. Pretty crazy she's got three kids now, eh?"

"Yeah." Shawn's eyes go wide at the thought, "Very crazy." He swigs his beer and looks so uneasy that Cory feels like he has to say something, anything to change the unbearable awkwardness of this conversation.

"We can't get pregnant," he blurts out. That is not what he had in mind.

"No we can't," Shawn smiles and looks at him like he's insane, "That's the problem with men."

"What? No, I mean Topanga and I. We've been trying for years and...nothing."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Cor. Really. That's awful and shitty. I'm so sorry."

"And I got laid off. Three times in the last four years."

"Fuck."

"And I think our marriage has totally gone to crap and I don't know if there's any way to save it or if I even should and I have no idea who the hell I any more or who I ever thought I was in the first place and...Shawn, I really need you to be my friend right now."

Shawn whips out his cell phone and begins pulling up a number.

"What are you doing?" Cory asks, horrified.

"Ordering pizza," Shawn holds the phone against his shoulder, "You're gonna eat some fucking greasy pizza and drink a lot of beer and tell me all about it."

"Oh. All right." Cory feels oddly comforted. It's nice to have all that off his chest and to have Shawn in charge again.

"Yeah, I'll hold," Shawn says into the phone, then he says to Cory, "And you're damn well not going home tonight. Now drink up."

"Okay, then." Cory scoots himself deeper into the sofa and does as he is told.

* * *

Cory gets very drunk, eats far too much pizza, and unloads everything to Shawn in an hours long monologue, interrupted periodically for bathroom breaks, refills, and then a switch from beer to whiskey. Throughout it all, Shawn is a sympathetic presence, nodding along without giving his opinion, moving closer and closer to him until at some point Cory is recounting all his woes while leaning up against Shawn's chest. It's a warm and familiar place. Shawn still smells the same. His heart still sounds the same.

Cory tells him everything. About how the quest for a baby has taken over their whole lives. About how he isn't sure if he even wants it anymore. How he's felt for a long time that their marriage is all about Topanga's life and Topanga's goals and he's just a supporting player. How he feels like one of those politician's wives trotted out to wave at the victory celebration and seldom seen again. How he's felt directionless for years, like he's sleepwalking. How he doesn't remember the last time he felt passionate about anything. How he felt for years like he was playing a role but that was okay because at least the rules were clear-now he doesn't even remember what that role was supposed to be. Or why he wanted to play it.

"I think I'm depressed," he says at last.

Shawn laughs, startling him. "No shit. Have you thought about, you know, seeing someone?"

"Like a call girl?"

Shawn gives him an incredulous look. "Jesus, you need to get laid," he whispers, then says more clearly, "No. Like a therapist. A psychiatrist."

"Oh, that. Yeah, I saw somebody for a while. Topanga told me I should. But I had to get off the meds because I couldn't come and that interferes with the whole baby-making process. I wasn't crazy about them anyway."

"Yeah, I don't blame you. I don't think I could stand that either. Are you all right, though, Cor?"

Cory looks at him blearily, not understanding what he means. His head feels cloudy. He hasn't been this drunk in a long time.

Shawn sighs and when he speaks his voice is very low. "I mean, do I have to worry about you walking off a bridge or something?"

"No," Cory frowns, "No, Shawnie. No. You really think I would ever do that?"

"Well, I always kinda worried if it got bad enough you might. You don't handle things not working out the way you want them to all that well. And you can be pretty irrational."

"_I_ can be irrational? Don't project yourself onto me."

Shawn looks hurt by that statement and Cory feels immediately awful, but he's not going to take it back. Shawn is the one who left him. Shawn's the one who always ran away.

Cory tries to stand up to go and pee, but he can't find his feet and Shawn has to jump up to steady him. He walks him to the bathroom and reluctantly gives him his privacy. After he pees, Cory opens up the medicine cabinet to take some preemptive aspirin. He knows his head is going to be killing him in the morning. He finds some Duane Reed brand aspirin and takes two. As he returns the bottle to the shelf, he can't help but turn a prescription bottle around so he can read the label. It's a drug called Zolpidem. The prescription was filled yesterday and Shawn has three refills left.

"You fall in?" Shawn calls from the hallway and Cory quickly closes the cabinet and leaves the bathroom. Shawn meets him at the door and helps walk him to the bedroom. There he helps him undress down to his boxers and undershirt and gets him into bed. Then Shawn leaves the room and Cory can hear him get a glass of water from the dispenser in the refrigerator door. When he returns to the bedroom he has two glasses of water in his hands and his prescription bottle under his elbow. He hands Cory one of the glasses and instructs him to drink it.

"I don't want to."

"You're gonna regret it in the morning if you don't."

Cory reluctantly drinks the water while Shawn takes one of the pills with his own glass of water. Then Cory hears himself asking, "What's Zolpidem?"

"Sleeping pill. If you can't wake me up in the morning, I'm not dead. I'm just drugged."

"Okay." The room has started spinning and Cory closes his eyes. He is dismayed to find that the darkness behind his eyelids is spinning too.

When he opens his eyes again, Shawn is no longer sitting on the bed. He is across the room, peeling off his layers of clothing. It is a comical amount of clothing, like clowns tumbling out of a tiny car, one shirt after another. Cory closes his eyes again and rolls over onto his side, hoping that might help his head. The mattress dips as Shawn crawls in beside him and immediately Cory rolls back over and starts to kiss him.

Shawn pushes him off gently. "That isn't why you wanted to come here. Go to sleep."

"I love you anyway," Cory mutters.

"Love you too. I always have."

Contented for the time being, Cory gives in and falls asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Cory wakes up several times throughout the night. He's never slept well in unfamiliar places. At one point he rolls over and puts his arm around Shawn, cuddles up behind him. He is shocked to feel how thin he is, like an armful of bones. His hand instinctively moves to the left side of Shawn's chest, making sure his heart is still beating. The steady thumping is reassuring and Cory passes back into sleep, still holding Shawn protectively.

It's late morning when Cory wakes up for good. He can tell by the quality of the light streaming through the half-open blinds. It takes him a minute to remember where he is, then he rolls over quickly, afraid that Shawn has left. But he's still there, sprawled out and snoring lightly. Cory pokes him but he doesn't stir and he remembers what Shawn said about the sleeping pill. So Cory takes advantage of the chance to have a good look at him while he can't hide.

That haircut is brutal and the beard, he thinks, absurd. He can also see in the sunlight a substantial scar that Shawn never had before on his scalp near his hairline. It doesn't look fresh-at least a couple years old. It's troubling, though. He doesn't like the idea of it. But his body...that's much more troubling. Even through his t-shirt, Cory can see that Shawn's all alarming angles. It makes him feel ill to look at.

He pulls himself out of the bed and goes to pee. Despite his precautions, his head is throbbing. He take more aspirin and then goes in search of his phone. He finds it in his discarded jeans on the bedroom floor. There's a missed call from Topanga from the night before. He calls her back but gets her voicemail. So he calls Gina, her secretary, and tells her to let Topanga know he's all right, just had a late night with a friend. Then he begins rummaging through the kitchen to find some breakfast. There's not much-some take-out containers, some cereal (but no milk), Coke, beer. Unreasonably irritated, he locates Shawn's keys, gets dressed and heads out to the diner on the corner.

Cory returns to the apartment with a stack of styrofoam containers and a grocery sack. He's pleased to find Shawn up and dressed and drinking coffee out of a glass.

"Where did you get coffee?" Cory asks, setting down his spoils which include a couple to-go cups of coffee.

"It's Jack and Coke," Shawn says, "What's all this?"

"You're drinking first thing in the morning?"

"You ease your way into a hangover, you ease your way out. How's your head?"

"Fine," Cory replies then amends it, "Terrible. Does that really work?"

Shawn nods and points to the grocery bag. "Is that orange juice? I can make you a screwdriver."

Cory makes a face then throws his hands up in defeat. Shawn puts together a healthy Tropicana-Smirnoff blend while Cory opens each styrofoam box and lays it out on the counter like a buffet. He accepts the glass from Shawn and points at each item with his free hand. "Pancakes. Omelette. French toast. BLT. Bacon cheeseburger. Eat something."

Shawn smiles apologetically. "That's sweet, Cory, but I'm not-"

"Eat something. I'm not kidding around."

Shawn glares at him but Cory glares right back. He sips his screwdriver, ready to wait out the standoff. But Shawn acquiesces and reluctantly begins picking at the BLT. Pleased, Cory helps himself to the pancakes. They stand beside each other, eating their respective meals at the counter. Cory bumps Shawn companionably. Shawn bumps him back.

* * *

"So, what are you gonna do about Topanga?" Shawn asks as Cory packs up the leftovers, each box neatly labeled, into the fridge.

"There," Cory says, "You've got your meals for the next couple of days. And there's milk for your cereal and bread and," he rummages in the grocery bag and produces two square aluminum cans, "Spam. Make some sandwiches."

Shawn smiles. "But what are you gonna do about Topanga?"

"What do you mean?" Cory stalks out of the kitchen and throws himself onto the sofa, irritated.

Shawn sits beside him. "I mean, are you gonna ask her to go to marriage counseling or what?"

"Probably."

"You think that's gonna work?"

"Probably not."

"Yeah. So then what?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what do you want to have happen?"

Cory sighs. "I want to get in a time machine and travel back to every mistake I made and unmake it."

"How's that working out?"

Cory shrugs. "She's not happy either. But I don't think she'll admit it if I don't admit it first. And I want her to be happy. I just don't know if that's possible with me dragging along behind her like a big, dumb anchor for the rest of her life. I know there's things she'd like to do, opportunities she's turned down. I mean, it's like Yale all over again every couple of months. I don't like being the reason she's not living up to her potential. And if I'm not even happy with all the sacrificing she does, what's the point of it all? Do either of us ever get to be happy?"

Cory waits for Shawn's response to this, but when it doesn't come he turns to look at him. Shawn seems lost in thought, his attention a hundred miles away. Then he's looking at Cory and Cory is surprised to see all the little lines at the corner of Shawn's eyes, quite visible in the morning sunlight. He is unmistakably older and it strikes Cory that he looks worn out.

"You wanna go someplace?" Shawn asks.

* * *

They end up at the Natural History museum which neither of them has ever visited, despite having more than a decade in New York between them. Shawn seems to be in an especially good mood about playing tourist with his old friend and his cheer is contagious. They wander through the exhibits making each other laugh and shoving each other around like eleven-year-old boys, getting occasional disparaging looks from guards.

Cory remembers school field trips when they were kids, how they had to take part in the buddy system. He and Shawn were always buddies, of course. And they always wandered off together, always got lost, always ended up hauled to the security office while the field trip chaperones were paged. But in-between the times when they wandered off and were hauled back by museum security-those were great times. The whole world was theirs and no one told them what to do or where to go. They made up fabulous stories about the mummies and ancient weapons and amber-encased prehistoric lifeforms they came across. Shawn made up the best stories, a skill he inherited from his father. His stories were always just this side of believable but so much fun. Cory listened intently while Shawn told incredible tales about each artifact and cast himself and Cory as characters in the stories. Sometimes they were warriors. Sometimes they were cavemen. Sometimes they were lost boys raised by wild animals.

Philadelphia and Jefferson Grade School and the Matthews's house in Cedar Heights and the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park and every adult and every rule faded away and it was just Cory and Shawn, Shawn and Cory, buddies hand-in-hand embarking on adventure.

"Do you remember-" Cory starts to ask now, as they stare down a diorama of ancient man.

"Yeah," Shawn answers. He takes Cory's hand, re-instituting the buddy system, and leads him onto the next exhibit.

Sometimes when they were kids, one of them would get overexcited and run to the next room faster than their buddy could find them in the crowds, forget to keep their hands locked. Those were panicky moments-Cory remembers the fear in the back of his throat tasting like tin foil-realizing they'd lost each other. But they always found each other and played it off like neither of them had been scared without the other. One time when they were very little, though, it took too long, what felt to a seven-year-old like hours. And when Cory finally found Shawn inside a walk-through model of the human heart, he was crouched down and crying, hands over his ears as if protecting himself from a blow. "You aren't supposed to leave me," he said, shoving Cory hard. But then he took Cory's hand and Cory promised it would never happen again and Shawn pretended he hadn't been crying.

Visiting a museum is a quieter affair these days. They read the placards, make fun of often euphemistic language, and mention how something reminds them of an article they read or a program they caught on PBS one night when they couldn't sleep. They're grown-ups now, something in all their wild stories they'd never imagined quite right. They both thought they'd be taller, for one thing, and maybe be professional wrestlers by now. Cory always pictured Shawn tattooed, pierced, and intimidating, nothing like the slight, subdued figure he'd turned out. And Cory's adult self had always somehow gotten straight, glossy hair like Eric's. And probably a passel of kids and a station wagon like his dad. He'd never pictured himself with glasses or a thinning spot in the back or feeling like he'd ruined everything before the age of thirty.

Being a weekday afternoon in the middle of January, the museum is pretty deserted. The majority of the other patrons are chaperoned groups of school kids, but they all seem to be following the same predetermined order of exhibits and so Cory and Shawn don't encounter them much. When they pop into the cafeteria for lunch, however, they are surrounded by kids.

"I feel like we should be getting chicken nuggets," Cory says, amused, as they wade through the swarms, trays in hand. Shawn gives him a distracted smile. Cory finds it a little odd that Shawn seems so suddenly uncomfortable surrounded by the kids-he'd always had a good time when they babysat Morgan or Josh. Maybe it's the sheer number of kids that's overwhelming. Shawn definitely looks overwhelmed.

They sit for a few minutes at their table, just long enough for Cory to unpack the plastic lids off the items on his tray and lay everything out just so before he realizes that Shawn hasn't touched his tray. He's sitting very still and looks for all the world like he's about to throw up.

"Okay, Shawnie?"

Shawn opens his mouth to reply, then closes it. He's gone pale as his shirt collar. "I gotta...I'll be right back," he mutters, abandoning their table and making his way unevenly out of the cafeteria.

Cory remains at the table and eats his pasta salad, enjoying watching the kids and trying to pick out some version of himself and Shawn that he knows must be among them. When it becomes clear that Shawn isn't coming back anytime soon, though, he wolfs down his panini and cleans up their trays. He grabs Shawn's untouched container of soup and goes looking for him.

He finds him in a little alcove near the washrooms where carts of folding chairs are stored. Shawn is leaning against the wall between two of the carts, arms folded and eyes closed. Cory weaves his way through the carts and Shawn startles when he reaches out and touches his arm.

"You still hung over?" Cory asks.

"No. Sorry. I just couldn't breathe."

"What's that about?" he asks. Shawn doesn't respond and Cory holds up the soup container in offering but Shawn makes a face so Cory discards it on top of one of the carts. He turns back to him and waits expectantly for some idea of what Shawn wants.

Then Shawn shoves Cory into one of the carts, causing all the chairs on it to rattle and, hands tightly gripping him on either side of his chest, he begins kissing him forcefully. Cory squeaks a little-Shawn's grip is painful-but Shawn doesn't loosen up in any fashion. He keeps pushing against him, trying to dig deeper with his mouth and tongue. It's not entirely unwelcome-Cory feels himself growing hard inside his jeans-but he can't breathe and the whole thing feels off somehow. He puts his hands on Shawn's shoulders and pushes him back.

Shawn lets go of him and falls back a step. There's an expression on his face that Cory can't place-frustration? desperation? panic? anger?-and he pleads with Cory, pressing into him again.

"Nobody fucking knows us here. Just do this."

Cory holds him off, uncertain what to do. Shawn looks like he's going to lose it any second.

"Listen," Cory says, "The place I'm staying is two blocks from here."

"Yes," Shawn replies immediately and insensibly. He physically turns Cory around and marches the two of them out of the alcove and then onward to the museum exit. The sound of children shrieking and laughing echoes off the marble walls behind them.

* * *

In Jim's apartment, they leave a trail from the entryway to the bedroom: boots, hats, gloves, scarves, coats, sweaters-so many goddamn layers of sweaters peeled off Shawn-shirts, belts, pants, socks, boxers. Now Cory's on his hands and knees atop the bed pushing Shawn up against the insane pile of pillows at the head. Shawn keeps trying to kiss him but Cory keeps repositioning himself awkwardly around him, causing Shawn to start over every time Cory shifts position.

"What do you keep doing that for?" Shawn growls, sitting up in frustration.

Cory sits back, equally frustrated. "I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you."

"I am so beyond getting hurt."

"No, I mean literally. Like I'm going to hurt you with the weight of my body."

Shawn looks incredulous. "You look great, Cor."

Cory is confused, then he realizes that Shawn thinks Cory's being insecure. "No," he says, "You. You're nothing but bones."

Shawn rolls his eyes and moves away from Cory. The mood has officially been killed. He locates his boxers and slips them back on. His back is to Cory and his shoulder blades look sharp and angry as he slips his undershirt over his head, covering over his ribs and vertebrae.

Cory feels his heart sink as he watches all the protective layers going back on. "I'm sorry, Shawnie, but you look terrible. And I'm not saying that to be a jerk. I'm worried about you."

Shawn shakes his head, buckling his pants. "Don't worry about me. Nobody should ever have to worry about me again. Do you have any idea how much money I got from the film options alone? And they're talking about a cartoon. And toys. It's ridiculous. I could never write another book again and I'd be just fine."

"Your career's great and I'm so, so proud of you. But it looks like it's killing you."

Shawn doesn't sound angry anymore. He just sounds tired. "It's just been a bad couple of months. It has nothing to do with the books or my job." He scratches his beard and looks at Cory without really looking at him. "Anyway, I should go. This was a bad idea."

"No," Cory is surprised to hear how desperate his own voice sounds, "Don't go. Please. I promise I'll leave you be. I'll stop acting like I'm your mother. I just don't want to be alone today."

"I really do have to get going. I got a couple of appointments I shouldn't be late for. I'm pretty sure my lawyer bills by the minute." He seems to soften, though, seeing Cory's no doubt crestfallen expression. "But why don't you come back to my place tonight? I should be done with everything by six."

Cory feels dumb, remembering that Shawn is rich and famous and has important rich and famous people things he should be doing. "Don't worry about it," he says, following Shawn to the door, "I know you're busy. I appreciate you making the time to see me."

"Oh, come on," Shawn chides, buttoning up his coat and wrapping his scarf, "I'm really not that busy. I have practically no life these days. How do you think I wrote so many books so fast?" Then he pauses. "Where's Josh's book?"

"Oh." Cory leaves him in the entry and returns with the little paperback.

Shawn takes it from him and tucks it inside his coat. "I'm so busy I won't even have time to write in it until this evening at the very earliest," he says sarcastically, "Guess you'll have to come over to get it if you don't wanna make your baby brother cry." Shawn makes a face at him and lets himself out. "See ya later."

Alone in Jim's apartment, Cory once again doesn't know what to do with himself. Then he checks his phone and sees more missed calls from Topanga. He does some quick math to figure out the time difference and realizes he just might catch her.

"I'm so sorry I haven't called," he says immediately when she picks up.

"Were you with Shawn?" she asks, not unkindly.

"Yeah."

"I figured."


	4. Chapter 4

Cory and Topanga talk for a good amount of time that afternoon, surprising since he usually can't get her for more than fifteen minutes or so on a weekday. She talks a bit about the case she's working on, how things are taking longer than expected, but mostly she asks him about New York and wants to hear how Shawn's doing.

"Is he bald and fat now?" She asks.

"No, not at all."

"Darn. That's not fair. Still stupidly handsome, huh?"

"I dunno. He doesn't look great, actually."

"I guess we all get older."

"I guess." He wants to tell her that he's starting to feel like something's really wrong. Like there's something Shawn's not telling him. But it's so hard to talk to her about anything anymore. All their conversations are so surface-level. His fault as much as hers.

"Is he married now?"

"No. I don't think so. I didn't ask. Doesn't seem like it, though." _God, I sound like an idiot._

"Well, is he seeing anybody?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask."

"What on Earth did you guys talk about?"

_You_. But of course he doesn't say that. "We went to the Natural History museum," he offers instead. Topanga will like that he went out somewhere and did something. She's always after him to enrich himself.

"Oh. That's nice. You think you're going to go any place else this week?"

"Maybe. I thought I might give Bill and Katie a call and see if they're free." He hasn't actually thought about doing this at all until this moment, but, again, it's the kind of thing he thinks she'll like to hear. He has no intention of calling Bill and Katie. They're even more boring than Cory and Topanga. Their boringness always seemed to multiply exponentially whenever they got together.

"You didn't set anything up with them before you left?" The irritation and judgement in her voice is unmistakable. Cory never does anything right.

"No."

"Oh. Well, hopefully they're available. That would be nice."

"Yeah."

"What are your plans for tonight?"

"Um, I think Shawn and I are having dinner."

"Wow, for being so rich and famous he's sure got a lot of free time for you." _Christ_. He's been back in touch with Shawn for less than twenty-four hours and already she's implying that they're spending too much time together.

"I guess." And then Cory changes the topic and brightens his tone because he's tired of feeling like an asshole. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Same old, same old. Paperwork and a Lean Cuisine."

"You should go out with somebody. What about Dean and David?"

"You hate when I go out with them. You always say I come home snobby."

"You do, but I'm not there."

Topanga laughs. It's a nice sound that Cory doesn't hear often enough. "All right," she says and he can hear her stacking things up on the desk like she does when she's about to wrap up a call, "I should get going. Tell Shawn I said Hi."

"I will."

"And tell him to keep some time open for me next week. I want to see what he looks like famous."

"A hobo. He looks like a hobo."

"That's very New York of him, isn't it?"

"Maybe that's it. Maybe he's just gone full-on hipster."

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit. All right, take care."

"Bye." Cory hits end on the call and immediately plugs the phone into its charger. He lays back on the bed, laces his fingers over his chest and closes his eyes. He's been pretty certain for a while that the romantic part of his marriage is dead. He's had years to come to terms with this reality. What he misses more than that, though, is having her as a friend. He could put up with being in a marriage that never should have been-he did, for years, because at the heart of it was a partnership with a friend. Then somewhere they stopped being friends most of the time. Not lovers, not friends, what does that leave them as?

Cory groans and forces himself to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He notices then a sweater on the floor near the ottoman, one of Shawn's layers he must have missed. He picks it up and examines it. It's a nice sweater-rust colored, pure wool. Not terribly pricey but not cheap either. It's certainly not the second-hand crap Shawn used to wear before. He balls it up and brings it to his face. Inhales. Shawn has always smelled like home.

He remembers now a grubby old undershirt-Fruit of the Loom, size small. Shawn had forgotten it when he moved out and Cory kept it with his own things, even long after he could no longer smell Shawn on it. Then Topanga tossed it out with a bunch of clothes she decided had gotten too small for Cory. He'd actually moped and mourned the loss of that ratty undershirt.

Not sure why, Cory puts the sweater on over his own button-down shirt. He laughs. Shawn's too-big sweater is too small on Cory, but for some reason wearing it makes him smile. He leaves it on while he tools around Jim's apartment, browses the internet on his laptop and generally kills time until he has to leave for dinner. Even just with a stupid sweater for company, he doesn't feel so lonely.

* * *

Cory decides to walk to Shawn's place instead of spending money on a cab. God knows he could use the exercise. Mostly, though, he just wants fresh air and a clear head. The snow has eased up and it's nicer than it's been since he got here. He enjoys the brisk, chilly air. He misses having real seasons. California has never felt quite like a real place to him.

His phone rings and it's his parents' number. Cory always picks up a call from them no matter what these days. They're getting to that age and he worries. He's relieved to hear that his mom sounds incredibly happy when she greets him. "What's up, Mom?"

"I'm going to be a grandmother."

Cory's mind blanks for a second. He just talked to Topanga a little while ago. If she knew anything then, she in no way let it on. But why would she tell his mother before him? God, is this really happening? Then he comes to his senses. "Eric?" he asks, "Or Morgan?"

"Oh, god, Morgan? No. No. Eric. Eric and Sarah. They're due in August."

"Wow. Eric's gonna be a dad. That's wild."

"Oh, listen, Cory," Amy's voice softens, "I know this isn't easy news for you to hear. That's why Eric didn't want to tell you himself. He-"

"Mom, it's okay. It's great news. Really. I'm happy for him. I get to be an uncle. That's awesome. Topanga will be happy too."

"Children are a blessing whenever they come, Cory."

"I know."

"It'll happen for you when it's supposed to."

"I know."

Then Amy changes tone, puts on a brisk, cheery voice again. "How is New York? Are you having fun?"

"It's great, yeah. I saw Shawn, actually."

"I'm so glad to hear that. How's he doing?"

"Great," he says, maybe a little too forcefully, but he doesn't want to rain on his mother's good mood, "I'm actually on my way to see him again right now."

"Well, that's wonderful. I won't hold you up. Tell Shawn we love him and we're all so proud of him. And that he's gonna be an uncle too."

Cory forces himself to laugh. "I will, Mom. I love you. Tell Eric I'm happy for him."

After he slips his phone back into his pocket, Cory bows his head down and walks faster up the block. The wind no longer feels crisp and refreshing; it's back to being sharp and mean. As the pedestrians surge around him and Cory trudges forward he can't help but feel like he's been standing in the same spot for a decade while the rest of the world keeps moving past him.

* * *

The doorman lets him go right up, but it's a while before Shawn answers the door. He ushers Cory into the apartment with a distracted smile then leaves him standing in the kitchen.

"It'll be just a few minutes, sorry," he says over his shoulder, "We're a little behind schedule."

"Okay," Cory says, as if he knows what Shawn's talking about, and takes a seat at the kitchen bar. There's a bunch of paperwork and binders on it that weren't here this morning and he idly glances over them. Mostly it seems to be insurance stuff-Cory's worked in insurance for the past several years and he'd recognize those forms upside-down in the dark. Life insurance policies, two separate policies from the looks of it. He sets them aside and picks up one of the binders. _Estate Planning_. Fuck. Cory drops it back onto the bar, feeling like his heart has stopped. Then, quickly, he begins to page through it.

To his relief, the forms are straight-forward, giving no indication of anything imminent impending. They look pretty similar to the same ones he and Topanga filled out when she started at the law firm and they finally had assets. The only difference is the numbers. Cory's eyes grow wide at the figures listed. Shawn wasn't kidding about the money. He's earned a fortune in the past few years. But who's he leaving it all to?

Cory leans over on his barstool, craning his neck so he can see through the little hallway into the living room. Shawn is there with a middle-aged woman and an older man. None of them are paying any attention to Cory in the kitchen. The woman is sitting on the sofa, frowning over her Blackberry. The man and Shawn are standing on the far side of the room. The man's talking to Shawn and Shawn's nodding. Now Shawn's rolling up his sleeve (sleeves, Cory thinks, gotta be at least three sleeves) and the man is putting something on his arm. A blood pressure cuff. Huh.

Cory sits back properly on his stool, staring forward at the bar. What kind of a doctor still makes house calls? And who the hell is that woman? What the fuck has Shawn not been telling him?

To direct his mind away from the half million terrible possibilities that have just occurred to him, he resumes his examination of the estate papers, looking for beneficiaries. He finds a name but doesn't recognize it. _Sadie Elizabeth Barnes. _Shawn has left her everything, it looks like. Whoever she is, she's going to be one rich woman someday. And this doesn't appear to be some old girlfriend he's forgotten to update off the documents. All the forms with her name on them are dated within the past month. He continues flipping through the binder, looking for any other information that might indicate that he still knows anything about his friend at all.

Then Cory sees his own name and stops. Shawn has willed him all his personal effects. _Including all manuscripts, notebooks, and electronic files._ He flips the page back to find the front of that document. The one about the personal effects is dated well over a year ago. Cory just stares at the date, flips the page back and stares at his name. Then he closes the binder and pushes it away from himself, ashamed.

He stands up and helps himself to a beer from the fridge. He plays with the cap after he's removed it, takes a sip, then peers into the living room again. The doctor has set up one of those tall, mechanical scales and Shawn is glowering at it as he steps off it.

"God, I'd kill to weigh that," the woman jokes from the sofa, still fixated on her Blackberry.

Cory turns away and leans over to look at the life insurance forms again. This time he flips ahead to find the beneficiaries. Sadie, again, on the first policy. Who the fuck is Sadie? The beneficiary on the second policy is a corporation. Why the hell is a corporation taking out a policy on Shawn's life? And a huge one at that? Cory's never seen a policy payout that large that didn't involve a suspected mob boss. Shawn's life is apparently worth a lot of money to some people.

Then it sounds like the people in the other room are wrapping up, so Cory leans back against the fridge, casual-like and concentrates on his beer. The doctor nods as he passes him and lets himself out, toting his oversized case of equipment. Then Shawn and the woman follow a moment later, laughing about something as he helps her with her coat and holds her bag while she ties her scarf.

"Oh," Shawn says, stepping back and putting his hand on Cory's back, "Helen, this is Cory, my best friend since forever."

She smiles, nodding. "You're Kevin!"

Cory's confused, then realizes she talking about the books. He's Kevin. "Yeah," he says, accepting her handshake.

"This is Helen, my agent," Shawn explains.

"Nice to meet you," Cory says.

Shawn starts to follow Helen out but she waves him off and tells him goodnight. After he closes the door behind her, Shawn leans his back against the door and exhales with his whole body. "I'm sorry," he says, "That went a lot longer than I was expecting. I didn't even know that guy was coming. Thought I just had to fill out some forms."

"It's okay. What was all that?"

Shawn makes a face and gets himself a beer from the fridge. "Medical examination for a life insurance policy. My publishers are giving me a big advance for my next three books and they need some insurance in case I get run over by a bus."

"Must be some advance."

"Mmm," Shawn takes a long swig of the beer.

"That's a lot of pressure," Cory says, hoping maybe this is the root of everything. A simple answer with a probably simple solution.

But Shawn shrugs. "I've already written the first two manuscripts and I'm almost done with the third. They're not exactly _Moby Dick_." Then he cocks his head, looking at Cory with a gleam of appraisal. "You look amazing in that sweater."

Cory flushes, realizing he's still wearing Shawn's sweater. He'd meant to take it off before he left Jim's apartment. "It's too tight on me," he says.

"No, it certainly is not. You should wear more stuff like that."

"It's your sweater."

Shawn's eyes light up at this and Cory feels like he just admitted to wearing Shawn's underwear. "Keep it," Shawn says, "It looks better on you."

Cory gives him an awkward smile, just feeling self-conscious now. Shawn grins back at him, sets his bottle down on the bar and gives Cory a little peck on the cheek, letting one hand brush against Cory's stomach under the borrowed sweater. Tingles dance down Cory's body.

"Five minutes," Shawn says apologetically, holding up five fingers as he walks past him back toward the living room, "and I'll be ready to go. I have to close out some stuff."

"Sure," Cory follows him into the living room and stays there as Shawn continues on into the little back bedroom that he uses as an office. While he's out of the room, Cory scans the space, looking for clues. Clues leading to what he doesn't quite know. There are books and records galore on the shelves, but Cory can't really interpret any hidden meaning in these. Shawn has a pretty nice stereo, the only visibly expensive item in the whole apartment. He has a lot of classical on vinyl-Cory has always been surprised that was the thing that stuck with him from his relationship with Angela.

Glancing back at the office and seeing Shawn's silhouette still in front of the computer, Cory squats down and opens one of the cabinets at the bottom of the book shelf. There are a couple of SLR cameras in here and several boxes containing various lenses. Spying what looks like a photo album, Cory pulls it out and flips through it quickly. It's not filled with photos, though, just magazine clippings. Pictures from magazines. Fashion shots. Portraits. There doesn't seem to be much theme to the collection. He puts the album back, closes that cabinet, opens the next. This is the liquor cabinet. He closes it quickly and climbs to his feet.

Then he spies a little bowl on the bookshelf, ceramic, very handmade-looking. It's filled with what at first look like poker chips. Cory picks one up, though-something compels him to-and realizes they're Narcotics Anonymous chips. 1 month. 2 months. 4 months. 6 months. 1 year. 2 years. 3 years. He drops them back in and turns away. He doesn't feel like snooping anymore.

He goes to the office, about to poke his head in and see if Shawn is ready and nearly bumps into him as he comes through the doorway. "Ready to go?" Shawn asks cheerfully.

Cory wraps his arms around him and pulls Shawn into an embrace. Shawn is a little stiff-the hug has caught him off-guard-but he allows it. Cory holds him there for a long time. Shawn waits, arms pinned against his sides. Cory has his eyes squeezed shut, willing the intervening years to fall back and to never have happened. When this doesn't occur, Cory sighs. "I never stopped caring about you, you know," he says into Shawn's shoulder.

Shawn nods as best he can in tight quarters and Cory releases him. Shawn looks a little bit embarrassed but quickly plasters on his bright, fun-time-guy smile. "Let's go out already," he says, stepping past Cory, "I'm under doctor's orders to eat like a pig."

Cory follows him back into the entry and as they're pulling on their outwear, Shawn traces a finger down from Cory's chest to his waist.

"I like you in my clothes," he says.

And Cory laughs, despite the feeling of complete sadness inside his chest.

* * *

Shawn takes him way the hell uptown to a Chinese place that looks like it was frozen in 1962 and recently thawed out. It's charming, though, and Shawn seems really happy to show it to him so Cory lets himself relax. Cory sits back in the booth, grinning over the rim of some terribly fruity thing with a pineapple skewer in it.

"Don't poke your eye out," Shawn laughs at him. He looks younger in this dim lighting, almost like his old self as he gulps from his own oversized concoction. He's beautiful. Cory has always loved the sight of Shawn happy.

Shawn is describing in glorious detail a horror movie he caught on TV the other night. Cory's never known anyone who loved horror movies as much as Shawn and he's glad to find that at least this small thing is still the same. It could be 1994 again for all their conversation has not changed.

"And then," Shawn smiles as he pauses for suspense, "Demon Pig."

"Oh, god," Cory laughs.

"I mean, of course, right? What else would it be? Demon pig."

"Eric's having a kid," Cory blurts out, apropos of nothing.

"Wow," Shawn says after a second.

"I know. Why's it always the idiots who have no problem procreating?"

Shawn frowns slightly at this. "Eric's gonna be a great dad."

And Cory feels ashamed of himself. "I know," he sighs, "Of course he will."

"You know, I saw him a few years ago."

"You did?"

"Yeah, at Jack's wedding."

"Oh." Cory is perplexed. Eric never said a word about this to him. Cory didn't even know Jack had gotten married. "He never mentioned it."

"That's good," Shawn raises his eyebrows as he keeps his gaze fixed on his drink, "I was pretty fucked up back then. I'm glad he didn't say anything to you. Eric's a good guy."

Before Cory can ask him anything about this statement, they're interrupted by the waitress who comes bearing a tray of little fried things and wee cups of sauces. She seemed to know Shawn when they came in and now he flirts with her in Cantonese, which makes her giggle. She says something back to him and he gives her his ladykiller grin. Cory watches her as she departs and wonders if Shawn ever slept with her.

"When did you learn Chinese?" Cory asks.

Shawn laughs at him again. "I don't know Chinese. I can flirt and ask where the bathroom is. I wasn't there long enough to learn much more."

"What were you doing there?"

"Shooting pictures," Shawn says, "I did that for a couple years."

"How did you get that gig?"

"I was sleeping with a photo editor at Conde Nast. He hooked me up with a lot of assignments even though I didn't have much experience."

_He. _Cory holds his tongue because Shawn has picked up a little dumpling of some sort from the platter and it's gotten to the point where Cory's just desperate to see him ingest some calories that aren't alcoholic. When he swallows the dumpling, he looks up and notices Cory's dagger eyes and a little half-grin breaks across his face.

"Well, you didn't think I was just Cory-curious, did you?"

"No, I just...you always really liked women."

"I still do," Shawn shrugs, "I like a lot of people. And listen, about this afternoon," he reaches across the table and puts his hand on Cory's, "I'm really sorry. I know that was out of bounds. I know that's not why you're here and I understand that I had no business putting you in that position. I won't let it happen again."

Cory doesn't respond to that because he doesn't know what to say. He kinda does want it to happen again; he's wanted it to happen again for years. But it doesn't seem right to say that.

Shawn seems ashamed, though, when Cory doesn't respond. Shawn sits back in his side of the booth in silence and nurses his drink.

"You seeing anybody?" Cory asks as lightly as possible, helping himself to an eggroll as subterfuge. _Sadie Sadie Sadie Who Is Sadie?_

Shawn shakes his head. "Nah."

_Sadie Sadie Sadie _

"Nobody?"

"Well, I mean, I have people I go out with, but I sort of gave up on the idea of commitment when I walked away from you."

All Cory can think is that Shawn has willed an incredible fortune to some fuck buddy. And then he processes the second part of his statement. "What do you mean?" he asks, horrified.

Shawn is looking down at the table, tracing a puddle of condensation that's dimpled up his zodiac placemat. When he does direct his eyes up at Cory, it's clear that the pain is still fresh in his memory.

"Cory. There was never anybody in the world more devoted to a person than I was to you. Everything you wanted me to do, I did. Everything you asked me to do, I did. Even when you told me you loved somebody else more, I still stuck around just in case there was anything I could do to make you that little bit happier. If that wasn't commitment, I don't know what is. Anyway, I guess I decided I couldn't ever do that again."

_Oh, god. Oh, god, Shawnie._ Cory's heart has seized up with guilt and regret. He'd packed it all away all those years ago and here it is, fresh as ever. As if somebody's using him as a ventriloquist dummy, he hears his voice continuing this terrible conversation. "But...couldn't you even try with someone else?"

"Maybe _you_ could devote yourself to someone else. I never could. You made it look so fucking easy. I was done after you. That's it."

Cory can't say anything. He watches as Shawn refuses to look at him, all the happiness of just a few minutes earlier evaporated. Shawn finishes his stupid fruity drink and slouches back in the booth. The tasty little fried things grow cold and unappetizing on the platter between them. The ting-tang-y recorded music that seems like some 1950s American ad man's idea of "the orient" continues to play inanely.

The waitress appears with their food. Shawn flashes her his fake charming smile and then it is gone as soon as she leaves.

Neither of them moves. The plates steam, untouched between them.

Then Cory sighs. "I cheated on Topanga."

Shawn furrows his brow. "What?"

"Three times."

Shawn sits up straight and stares at him.

Cory closes his eyes and lets the last part of his confession drop. In for a penny, in for a pound. "With men."


	5. Chapter 5

"You cheated on _Topanga_?" Shawn roars.

Cory takes off his glasses and rubs his hands over his eyes.

Shawn shakes his head, mouth still open in shock, processing this confession. "Jesus, even you? Your whole thing was that you were so committed and that no one else...Jesus...it's all bullshit...Poor Topanga."

"I know. I'm a shit."

"Damn right you're a shit. I oughta kick your ass on her behalf."

Cory puts his glasses back on in time to roll his eyes, both at the notion that Shawn could ever kick his ass and at Shawn's misplaced sense of outrage about this whole thing. "I cheated on her with you for years."

"I don't count," Shawn snarls, but then Cory can tell the absurdity of the situation is getting to him and Shawn's trying hard not to smile. "Anyway," Shawn continues, his voice quivering with almost-laughter, "I came first. I always sort of felt like you were cheating on me with her."

"Oh, you did?"

"Yeah."

"And you put up with that?"

"Of course I did. I was pathetically in love with you."

Cory heaves a deep sigh, completely exhausted by the emotional roller coaster of the last fifteen minutes. He gives up on the conversation and starts spooning rice onto his plate, mixing it in with the chicken and vegetables. When he is angry, he eats. It keeps him from saying things he shouldn't, if nothing else.

"So, who were these guys?" Shawn asks almost in a whisper. He has apparently moved past being appalled and onto being intrigued.

Cory takes his time mixing all his rice around meticulously so that every grain is evenly saturated with sauce. He really doesn't want to have this conversation, but then he hears himself speaking the truth anyway. "They were three Shawn Hunter look-alikes who all reside in the general vicinity of Orange County and were surprisingly willing to mess around with me."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

Shawn is just flat-out grinning now. "You fucked three guys because they looked like me? That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

Cory eyes him warily. "I didn't say I fucked them."

"Fair enough. Hope you had a good time, though."

"Jesus. I thought I was a shit for cheating on my wife."

"Yeah, but you were sorta cheating with me and we've already established that I don't count."

"Have we established that?"

"More or less."

"Shawnie. Shut up and eat your goddamned food. My mother would cry if she saw what you look like."

A flash of annoyance passes over Shawn's face, but he starts putting together his plate. "God bless your mother."

Cory sighs. "Don't make fun of my mother."

"I'm not. I'm being serious. God bless her. Your mom and school lunches are the only reason I had enough to eat growing up. I haven't forgotten that." He heaps rice onto his plate and finally starts to eat his meal.

"Oh, come on," Cory says, "Sometimes I really think you exaggerate how bad you had it."

"Are you kidding?" Shawn asks around a mouthful of pepper steak, "I had it better than a lot of kids, but I sure as hell went hungry most nights." He swallows, takes a sip of his water and continues, "God, I was so hungry all the time. You never forget what _that_ feels like. You know, I'm convinced now that was half the reason I did so poorly at school. I wasn't dumb, but it's hard to concentrate when all you can think about is lunch."

Cory has forgotten about eating his own dinner. This is completely new information about their childhood. "But you had parents. I know they weren't the greatest, but they must have looked after you when they _were_ around."

Shawn shakes his head, "The State gave me lunch. Sometimes. Sometimes we didn't qualify. And sometimes there was food at home. But never much and I couldn't count on it. Virna hardly ever got it together enough to take care of herself, let alone this kid she was stuck with that wasn't even hers. She wasn't even functioning half the time. And Chet always just looked out for himself. Chet _always_ looked out for himself...So, you know, god bless your family. And the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, I guess."

Cory tries to ignore the way his heart is sinking. There's so much he never even noticed that was going on right in front of him. "I don't understand what my parents had to do with anything, though."

Shawn keeps his eyes fixed on his plate, as if scooting his food around with his fork is suddenly mesmerizing. When he speaks again the practiced nonchalance is gone from his voice, replaced with something more like embarrassment. "Your dad caught me shoplifting from his store when I was, I dunno, eight? Wonderbread and peanut butter. I can still see it. But he didn't call the cops. And he didn't call my parents. He sent me home with a whole box of food. And after that your mom always made sure I had plenty to eat when I was at your house. Don't you remember how she was always sending me home with the leftovers? Your parents were so good to me, Cory, in a lot of ways. I don't know how I would have turned out without them. _And_ Eric."

"Eric?"

"Yeah. When I moved in with him and Jack, it's not like my piece of shit dad gave me a food allowance. And I wasn't about to accept any kind of charity from Jack. But from Eric it was different, I guess. He bought the groceries for both of us and never made a big deal about it. I don't know if it was your parents telling him to do that, or what, but...well, I won't ever forget that. Your family, man...it wasn't 'til I got to college that I didn't have to depend on the Matthews to eat."

Cory smiles weakly. "I remember that. You wouldn't shut up about how amazing the whole meal plan thing was."

"It was!" Shawn's smiling now, too, which Cory's finds a relief. "That was the first time in my life I had a guaranteed three meals a day. It was like winning the lottery. I think I put on ten pounds my first month at Pennbrook."

A memory of Shawn in their dorm room pops into Cory's head. He was changing his clothes and laughing about something. Cory always checked him out when he was changing his clothes. He can see his body, his smile. He looked healthy and happy and so fucking hot. "You looked good in college," Cory murmurs.

"I did. I think that was the only time I didn't feel self-conscious, like everybody could just look at me and know I was poor and fucked-up."

"Well, you're not poor now," Cory says.

"Still fucked-up."

"Yeah, but we all are."

Shawn smiles. "This is true. Now, why are we talking about my stupid childhood when we should be talking about your secret hobby of sleeping with my gay Californian doppelgängers?"

Cory makes a face. "Why are we talking about any of this?"

"I want some details, Babe."

Shawn is smiling and Cory never could resist that. Or being called "babe." Shawn still knows how to play him like a violin.

"All right," Cory says, "But I'm gonna need another drink and a promise from you that you're going to finish your dinner and get dessert."

Shawn laughs. "I got no problem with green tea ice cream."

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"I know."

* * *

Two more drinks and a shared dish of green tea ice cream later, Cory finally starts talking about his three not-Shawns.

The first guy looked a lot like him. So much so Cory thought he _was_ Shawn at first, pushing a shopping cart at Cory's local Target. But after he realized it wasn't, Cory continued to follow the guy. He couldn't take his eyes off him. And the guy picked up on it, gave him a smile.

"You were cruising him!" Shawn says, delighted, "You cruised my gay Californian doppelgänger!"

"I guess," Cory admits and continues with his story.

Up and down the aisles of Target, soccer moms all around them, Cory followed not-Shawn. At this point, neither of them was really shopping anymore, just pretending, playing whatever game it was they were now playing. Through the cleaning products aisle, the home decor department, and the greeting card section, Cory followed him, until not-Shawn abandoned his shopping cart outside the men's room. Then Cory followed him in and gave him head in the handicapped stall.

"Then he just sort of nodded at me, zipped his pants, fixed his hair and left."

Shawn nods appreciatively. "Hot. And then what?"

"I went back and finished my shopping. I couldn't go home empty-handed. Topanga would've been suspicious."

"Sneaky cheating bastard."

"Yeah." Cory feels a flush of guilt, but telling someone about the encounter for the first time-telling _Shawn_ about it-has aroused him a little. It's also made it seem like maybe this wasn't the most horrible thing he could have possibly done. He's never allowed himself to entertain that thought.

"So, did you pretend he was me while you were sucking him off?"

"Of course."

"Excellent." Shawn signals to the waitress to bring them two more drinks. "Tell me about Bachelor Number Two."

The second guy didn't really look that much like Shawn, but Cory was desperate. It had been almost a year since the encounter with the first guy and Cory had spent far too many hours wandering the aisles of Target, hoping to run into him again. Topanga was out of town and Cory had gone to L.A. to have dinner with some friends of theirs. After he left their house, he found himself driving into West Hollywood.

"You went to a gay bar?"

"I did."

"Cory, I'm impressed."

"It was like I was possessed."

"You were horny. Sometimes it's like the same thing."

"Yeah," Cory says, then looks at Shawn and nods deeply in agreement with this statement, "Yeah, it _is_."

Cory spent a lot of time drinking at the bar, fending off advances from blonde guys and tall guys and just not right guys. Finally, a reedy guy with floppy hair and and blue eyes ordered a drink next to him.

"I haven't had hair like that in years," Shawn scoffs.

"Shut up if you want to hear my story," Cory says and continues.

This not-Shawn wasn't all that into him, but Cory was persistent and not-Shawn didn't seem to be hitting it out of the park that night anyway, so he gave in and they made out. Then not-Shawn saw some friends he knew, went over to say hello and never came back. Cory continued to get drunk, puked in the parking lot, then jerked off in his car and fell asleep.

"That is the saddest story ever."

"I woke up to a parking ticket too."

Shawn puts his hands on his head. "Good god, man. Tell me the third one was better."

The third guy was actually brought to their house by Topanga herself. She called a landscaping company after Cory sprained his ankle and was supposed to stay off it for a few weeks. She asked them to send someone over to mow their lawn. While she was at work and Cory was at home, moping with his ankle in a cast, this guy showed up. This not-Shawn barely resembled Shawn face-wise, but his body was dead-on.

"Poor guy," Shawn says.

"No, like, you when you were nineteen."

"Oh, the year I had the college meal plan!"

"Yeah. Your prime."

"Was that my prime?"

"I don't know, but you looked great that year."

"That was a terrible year, but I did have those ten pounds."

"Whatever it was it looked good. That's my go-to year of sexy memories of you."

"Your sexy memories are organized by year. Of course they are."

The lawn mower guy spent about an hour working on their backyard, shirtless the entire time. And Cory spent that hour watching him through the kitchen window. Then the guy came to the back door to get his cash and Cory invited him in for lemonade.

"You're so ridiculous," Shawn says, "This is like some suburban housewife's really tame fantasy life."

"I know, I know."

They sat at the kitchen table drinking lemonade, Cory in his cast, this guy all sweaty. Cory started babbling to the guy about how he resembled a friend he used to have, his best friend who was also once his roommate. The guy seemed really interested in this, then asked if Cory's foot hurt inside his cast.

"And then he gave me a blow job."

"Wait. How did you get from smalltalk to that?"

"I don't remember. It was the first blow job I'd gotten from a guy since you and it sort of overshadows all the other details."

"So fake nineteen-year-old me gave good head at least?"

"Yes."

"Good for him. Then what happened?"

"I paid him and he left."

"You paid him?"

"Well, I owed him the money for the lawn."

"Did you...tip him?"

"Yes."

"A lot?"

"Yes."

"So, basically, Topanga hired you a young male prostitute to come to your house, service your lawn and service you?"

Cory squints his eyes at Shawn and drains the last of his drink. "All right, we're done with these stories now. I have no secrets left from you. Now you know what a lame creep I am."

Shawn smiles at him. "I don't think you're lame or a creep."

"Well, I'm pathetic, anyway. Half of me's spent the past eight years trying to forget you and the other half of me has spent that time trying to replace you."

Shawn is looking at him warmly, but he doesn't say anything for a while. He finishes his drink then counts out some money and puts it in the portfolio the waitress has left with the check. Then he stands and holds out a hand to Cory.

"Let's go home, Babe."

* * *

At Shawn's apartment, it isn't even a question of whether Cory's going to stay the night. They come in, take off their outerwear and immediately begin taking off their regular clothes. Cory gets down to his shorts and sits on the edge of the bed, watching as Shawn's still removing layer after layer.

"You know I love you, Shawnie, but you gotta tell me why you look like this. What's going on?"

Shawn pauses, one arm out of his sweater and one arm in. He glances at Cory but then looks away again and continues undressing.

"I don't know," he sighs, "It's some psychological shit. When I'm unhappy or worried about anything, I can't eat. I feel sick if I do. And then it just gets out of hand. Probably related to my childhood food issues, I'm sure. It's embarrassing. I'm a grown man."

"So you're not dying of some awful disease and not telling me?" Cory tries to keep his voice light.

Shawn pulls off another t-shirt. "Nope. Healthy as a horse. Independently verified as of this afternoon." Then he scowls. "They're giving me an asterisk, though, until I can put some weight back on. Because apparently, that puts me into some sort of risky category. My life is so humiliating sometimes."

He stops undressing when he reaches his undershirt and leaves it on, perhaps self-conscious from their conversation. Then he heads back to the kitchen and Cory follows him. Cory sits at the bar while Shawn gets a glass of water and takes his sleeping pill.

"What are you so unhappy or worried about that you haven't been able to eat for months?" Cory asks, as delicately as possible.

"Nothing. Dumb shit." Then Shawn sees the look Cory's giving him and knows he isn't buying it. "Okay. There's some stuff going on but I'm not ready to talk about it. I'm sorry."

"All right. But you promise you're not dying?"

"I'm not dying."

"Are you in trouble with the mob?"

That gets a smile out of Shawn. "I am not."

"Did you sell your soul to the devil for your success and now he's expecting you to pay up?"

"I am not currently Fausting it up, no."

"Well, I'm out of ideas."

"Good. Cause I'm fucking exhausted."

Cory isn't sure why but, despite all the distress this day has whipped up inside him, he feels right now warm and happy. He hops off the stool and gives Shawn a kiss on the cheek, which seems to surprise him. Shawn's phone sitting on the countertop beeps with some kind of notification just then and Cory takes the opportunity to give him his privacy. He leaves him there reading his phone and heads off to the bathroom.

Cory takes his time in the bathroom getting ready for bed. He washes his face and rummages in the linen cabinet until he finds an unopened toothbrush (_Stuart Rosenberg D.D.S. _is emblazoned on the handle) and some mouthwash. Then he flosses and cleans his ears. Being kinda drunk but not too drunk always makes him slow and extra-fastidious for some reason.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom, Shawn is not in bed as he expects him to be. So he backtracks through the living room (no Shawn) and then to the kitchen. Shawn is perched on one of the barstools, sound asleep. His head is resting on his bent arm on the counter, his other hand still holding his phone.

"Hey," Cory whispers and gives him a little shake. No response. He shakes him a little harder and all that happens is a little trail of drool spills out over the corner of Shawn's mouth.

"You're gonna fall off at some point and hurt yourself if you stay here," Cory says, as if Shawn is listening and just being unreasonable.

He stands still for a minute, trying to figure out if he should just leave him there or what he should do. He pulls him by the shoulders to see if he'll stand up if he starts to fall, hoping he can sleepwalk him to the bedroom, but Shawn is completely limp and Cory has to catch him from falling into a heap. Finally, Cory gives up and just scoops him up in his arms and carries him to the bedroom.

He deposits him on the bed and takes a few minutes to arrange the blankets and make him comfortable. Then he switches off the lamp and crawls in beside him. He wraps his arms around him and rests his cheek on Shawn's shoulder.

"Have sweet dreams, all right?" Cory whispers. He stays awake there for a while and prays silently before the soft rhythm of Shawn's breathing lulls him off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note:** Just wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone who's been reading and reviewing. Your comments have been extremely encouraging and a lot of fun to read. I love hearing what you're thinking as the story develops. I'm especially interested to see if the big reveal at the end of this chapter is a surprise or if the clues I've been dropping along the way tipped you off. Either way, thanks again for your continued support and I hope you enjoy this next installment._

_P.S. The rating jumps a bit for this chapter._

* * *

Cory is dreaming about his dad. They're riding somewhere in the car-the car his dad used to have when Cory was growing up, not the one he drives now-and they can't seem to find where they're going. They pass the same highway exit over and over again. Cory's trying to read the map, but it keeps folding over on itself and he can't make any sense of it.

"This would be easier if you'd paid more attention in school," Alan says, "Feeny was right."

Dream Cory starts to laugh. "Mr. Feeny is always right."

Then he wakes up.

It's very bright. Must be almost noon, he thinks. He sits up and puts on his glasses. He's the only one in the bed. And someone's running a vacuum cleaner in the living room. It's freezing cold.

Cory rummages through the pile of clothes on the floor trying to find his jeans but gives up and takes a pair of Shawn's pajama pants. They're a little tight but they'll do. Then he puts on some socks and the orange sweater from yesterday. He steps out of the bedroom and finds a middle-aged woman pushing a vacuum over the rug while listening to headphones. All the windows are open. The woman pays no attention to him.

Cory wraps his arms tightly to keep warm and checks the kitchen and the bathroom before he finds Shawn in the office. He's wearing the usual pile of clothes along with a knit cap and fingerless gloves and only looks up briefly from his laptop. "Morning, Sunshine."

The office is small and absolutely jam-packed with books and papers. There's a desk with a computer and printer set up on it and, across from it, a little two-seater sofa. There is where Shawn is sitting, feet resting atop the desk. Cory pushes some books out of the way and wedges himself down beside him.

"It's freezing," Cory says.

"Oh, yeah," Shawn doesn't look up from his laptop, "Cecilia's really into fresh air. I think she's secretly insane, but she's very reasonably priced."

They sit in silence for a few minutes while Shawn types. Cory shudders with a chill and Shawn pauses, hands him his half-drunk mug of coffee, and continues typing. It's still warm so Cory drinks it and waits for Shawn to finish up. He keeps going, though, so Cory takes the coffee mug back to the kitchen to refill. He steps over Cecilia's vacuum cord, fills the mug along with a second mug, and carries them both back to the office.

Shawn is frowning at his screen and gnawing on his knuckle. Cory starts to say something and Shawn shushes him. He types another sentence, backspaces, pauses. Types something else then hits Save and snaps the laptop shut.

"Genius at work, eh?"

Shawn makes a face and accepts his mug of fresh coffee. "Sleep well?"

Cory shrugs. "You?"

"I sleep like I'm in a goddamned coma every night."

"What happens if you don't take the pill?"

"I don't sleep for days. Then I make poorly-thought-out phone calls to people who don't want to hear from me. It's not pretty."

Cory sips his coffee and then notices a plate with some crumbs on it sitting on the desk. "Hey! You had breakfast."

"I did. I had toast."

"Good, that's great. That's really great."

Shawn gives him a withering look over the rim of his coffee mug. Then he lowers his mug, holding it with both hands, and his expression changes to something a little more hesitant. "Listen, Cory, I'm not kicking you out, but I've got a bunch of stuff I need to do today."

"Oh." Cory puts on a fake smile, "Of course. Let me just get dressed and I'll be out of your hair."

"No, no. I mean, you're welcome to stay here all day if you want. I don't care at all. I'm just...you know, I'm not gonna be around much. And I thought...I feel like I've been sucking up all your time. I don't want to get in the way of your whole vacation."

Cory doesn't tell him that he didn't even want to be in New York for the week by himself, that it was Topanga's idea and he made absolutely no plans for his own "vacation," partially out of stubbornness and partially out of apathy. He also doesn't tell him that the idea of being here and _not _being with Shawn depresses the hell of him. He knows their time here together is short-soon Topanga will be in town and reality will exist again and, before you know it, they'll be back in California and...he'll be back to feeling like he's just marking off the days on the calendar for the rest of his life. He doesn't say any of this. He just gives Shawn that fake smile again.

"But before you go," Shawn says,"I think you should have a shower."

"Why? All my stuff's at Jim's place. I'll just take one when I get back there."

"No, you see, I was in the bathroom this morning and I swear I saw this guy. He kinda looked like I did when I was nineteen. I mean, not a great match. Way too skinny. And beard-y. But if you squinted he could kinda pass for that kid you used to know. And I think, if you were to go in there and take a shower, you might run into him."

A little spark of excited apprehension jumps up in Cory's chest. "Your housekeeper's here."

"She already cleaned the bathroom."

"Yeah, but, what's she gonna think?"

Shawn gives him that look. That smoldery thing he perfected at fourteen. The one that drove every girl at John Adams High crazy. "Do you really care?"

Cory can't quite find his voice under the weight of that look. Then he manages to say, very quietly, "I think I'm going to have myself a shower now."

* * *

Cory's heart is pounding as he strips off his clothes and leaves them in a pile on the bathroom floor. He turns the shower on and waits for it to warm up, steadying himself on the sink. He can hardly breathe. He removes his glasses, sets them on the windowsill, and stares himself down in the mirror. Then he takes a deep breath and steps into the shower.

He stands there, arms crossed, under the streaming water and waits. And waits some more. Unsure what to do, he runs his hands through his hair. He picks up a bottle of shampoo and notes uneasily that it's the same brand Topanga uses. Then he laughs. Shawn not only uses lady shampoo, he uses very expensive lady shampoo. The thought occurs to him suddenly that this might not be Shawn's shampoo. He feels uneasy all over again.

"Hey, stranger."

And Shawn is there. He steps into the shower gingerly, too skinny and beard-y, but he's smiling that beautiful smile and Cory's heart feels like it's swelling to fill his entire chest. He's missed that smile for eight years. He's missed his friend who knows him better than anyone else in the world.

It's a standard bathtub/shower, so there isn't a lot of room for two grown men to maneuver and Cory is vaguely concerned that one of them is going to slip and injure himself, but that worry disappears as Shawn moves up to where Cory's standing under the shower head. Shawn's shoulder and arm and hip are touching Cory's and Shawn gives a little shake like a dog as the water comes down over him. He directs his head upward and closes his eyes as the water plasters down his hair against his skull. He opens his mouth, lets it fill with water and spits it out. God, that mouth. Cory's always been fascinated by its comical oversize and the gymnastic moves it makes, Shawn throwing so much expression into everything he says and does with it. Cory grows hard immediately, just watching him.

Shawn opens his eyes, stepping away from the water just enough to press his whole body front to front to Cory, dicks pressing into each other's bellies. He puts his mouth to Cory's and Cory could swear he sees fucking rockets exploding as he closes his eyes and accepts that kiss.

Shawn puts one hand against Cory's chest and traces the other down over the soft roundness of his belly and the hard bone of his pelvis and grabs his cock. Cory inhales sharply.

"You're so close, aren't you?" Shawn says.

"It's been too long," Cory explains in a weak voice.

"It _has_ been too long," Shawn licks Cory's collar bone and slides his hand over and under Cory's cock, teasing him.

"I'm gonna come."

"Then come," Shawn tightens his grips and starts legitimately jerking him off, "But if you decide to run back to California and play pretend again, just know that I intend to fuck you for real before you go."

"Oh, god," Cory says as he comes all over Shawn.

Shawn lets him go, grinning, and rinses himself under the water like he's just taking a regular old shower. When Cory's caught his breath and is standing more steadily, Shawn kisses him again, arm wrapped around him and his hand behind Cory's head. Even soaking wet, Shawn is the most elegant kisser.

Cory kisses him back eagerly and pushes toward him, taking more and more. Shawn loses his footing a little bit on the slippery tub bottom but catches himself against the wall. Cory doesn't stop, kissing him longer and deeper, pushing him into the tile and pinning him there with his body. He takes everything he wants and Shawn gives it to him.

Cory opens his eyes, practically nose to nose and Shawn's eyes are all lit up, pupils enormous and the skin around his eyes crinkling as he grins. Shawn puts a hand to Cory's chest. "You're so hot, Cory," he says.

Cory pushes Shawn's hand off and grabs him at the hips and sinks slowly to his knees. Shawn tilts his head back against the tile in pleasurable anticipation.

The water pounding down onto his back, Cory licks along Shawn's treasure trail and down over his thighs. Then he slips Shawn's cock into his mouth, delighted that it is exactly as he remembered it. He takes his time, reacquainting himself with every little ridge and vein and bump. Then he tightens down his mouth and begins to churn, enjoying the sight of Shawn's stomach muscles clenching and releasing in response to every little thing Cory does with his mouth and tongue. Having this kind of power over Shawn and knowing he is bringing him so much pleasure turns Cory on and he puts every ounce of effort he has into sucking him and teasing him.

Then Cory feels that telltale pulse and Shawn digs his fingers into Cory's shoulder and comes.

Cory holds it for as long as he can, delaying releasing Shawn into the cold world again, then spits and climbs back to his feet. He watches Shawn's body shudder and his chest expand in sharp jerks as he struggles to catch his breath. His face is pale but for two pink spots of flush on his cheeks and Cory reaches out to steady him as Shawn's knees wobble.

"Sorry," Shawn gasps with an embarrassed smile, holding on to Cory's shoulder, "You made me dizzy."

Cory kisses Shawn's forehead and carefully helps him to the far end of the tub, sitting him down on the flat edge of the porcelain. Shawn puts his elbows on his knees and lets his head hang, still working to steady his breath.

Cory takes a seat beside him on the edge of the tub and ignores the icky feeling of the vinyl shower curtain sticking to his back. He puts his arm around Shawn's shoulders. "You okay?"

"I am fabulous. Jesus Christ, I missed you."

* * *

_If you decide to run back to California. If you decide..._ Cory trudges through Central Park, ignoring everything around him. He likes Central Park. It was always his favorite place in the city when he lived here, but at the moment he couldn't care less about it. All he cares about is that little "if." _If_ you decide to run back to California, Shawn had said. If you decide to. The possibility that Cory might _not_ return to California has not existed in his mind before this. Now he can't let go of the idea. It is terrifying and exciting and panic-inducing all at once. What if he just didn't go back? _Oh, god._

_Nope. Not going to think about that. I have to go back. That's what I'm supposed to do. You don't just go on vacation and decide not to come back. You go on vacation. Then you go back home. That's how it works._

Cory gives himself a little determined nod of encouragement and picks his head up, grinning maniacally at the tourists and New Yorkers around him. It's a sunny winter day in this amazing city and he is just another tourist on vacation. Such fun! Look at the kids building snowmen! Aren't they adorable?

But the idea creeps back into his head. What if he stayed here? Got a do-over on his life for the last eight years? Got to go back to the road not taken, the road he was so deathly afraid to set a single foot on back then? His chest feels tight and painful just considering it-it's too wonderful a fantasy. It couldn't possibly ever work out to be half as amazing as he imagines. And it's not like his problems would miraculously go away just because he was with Shawn.

_But I'd be happier._

The intervening years have been shit. He can admit that now. But it's his life and that life-puttering around the house, pushing papers for endless interchangeable insurance companies, accompanying Topanga to dinners with other lawyers who never ask him anything about his life and speak in jargon about topics he doesn't understand, staying on top of the groceries and the housekeeping, fantasizing about his old best friend, occasional idiotic trysts with strange men, hoping for a baby just to give his life some sense of purpose-that life is all he knows. If he stayed in New York, all of that would be gone. He'd be starting from zero. That's a terrifying thought.

What _would _he do with himself here instead of there? Wouldn't it just be like Topanga all over again-Cory inserting himself in as a supporting player in someone else's successful and important life? Staying on top of the groceries, cooking Shawn's dinners, puttering around while Shawn lives his life and Cory waits around for a life to find him? He'd still be boring, directionless Cory Matthews, just floating on the fringes of somebody else's life.

But he'd be with Shawn.

Yeah, and with Shawn comes problems. Even with all his success, the guy's still a complete mess. One thing Cory didn't miss during their years apart was always having a front row seat to Shawn's self-destruction. All the money and support groups in New York haven't fixed that-it's obvious just looking at him. And God knows what secrets he's still keeping, what he _hasn't _let on yet. Being with Shawn has always meant dealing with unending drama, unending need. With Topanga, at least, there is no drama. No passion, either, but no drama. She takes care of herself.

_She doesn't need me. _

Cory stops in his tracks as that thought occurs to him. It's true, she doesn't. Hasn't ever. And then a much more disturbing thought pops up.

_Do I need her?_

Cory sits down on a bench, not seeing any of the runners or people or dogs that pass.

_Do I need her?_

The thing he told himself for every day since he was fourteen was that he needed Topanga. That one belief led to every decision in his adult life.

And now he doesn't think it was ever true.

* * *

Around seven o'clock Cory is lying flat on his back on the bed in Jim's apartment, staring at the ceiling. He's not sure how long exactly he's been lying here, but it has been long enough and still enough that when the message notification chimes on his phone, Cory nearly leaps out of his skin.

It takes him a minute to figure out where he left his phone. He locates it in his coat and it is, of course, a message from Shawn.

_Pack your stuff and stay with me until Topanga comes. I don't like the idea of you sleeping alone._

Cory doesn't reply to the message. He just sits there, holding the phone in his hand, considering all the reasons why this is a bad idea. Then he stands up, slips his phone in his pocket, and packs his things.

* * *

Cory can hear music from Shawn's apartment while standing in the hallway. He can't make out what it is but it sounds raucous and upbeat. When Shawn opens the door, bossa nova beats and bombastic Portuguese singing spilling out around him, Cory just stares at him. Since Cory last saw him this afternoon, his hair has been trimmed neatly and some sort of gel applied to it. He is also clean shaven, which has easily removed ten years from his face. Cory follows him into the apartment and notices that Shawn is dressed differently as well. He's wearing clothes that actually fit: one sweater, one collared shirt beneath that. He still looks too thin, but now at least fashionably so.

"What happened to you?" Cory asks as Shawn takes his bag and carries it to the bedroom.

Shawn puffs out his chest a little, pleased that Cory has noticed. "Oh, I hadn't been to my barber for ages. Decided today was the day. Then you know how it goes: your hair looks good, you feel like you need to up your game everywhere else too. You ever get one of those straight-razor shaves?" Shawn runs a hand over his now-smooth cheek in memory of it, "Unbelievable. I always feel like I could go right to sleep in the chair."

"You clean up well."

"It's one of my charms." Shawn leads the way back into the living room, closes up the laptop he'd left open on the sofa and pours a glass of wine for Cory to match the one Shawn has on the coffee table. He is almost dancing a little in his movements. "How was your day? Did you like being a tourist?"

"It was great," Cory lies, "Lots of fun. I went to Central Park and then I had dinner at this little hole-in-the-wall place I always liked. I can't believe it's still in business."

"That's terrific."

"Yup." Cory can't take his eyes of Shawn. His face is gaunt and his eyes look tired, but he really could pass now for Cory's memories of him. The guy he's fantasized about in guilt-ridden secret for the past eight years is sitting right in front of him.

"Let me turn this down," Shawn says, and adjusts the volume on the stereo, "Sorry. I was celebrating before you got here."

"What were you celebrating?"

"I finalized the sale on my old apartment. I came out a lot better than expected."

"The rat's nest you were telling me about?"

"No, no. The place I lived before I bought this place. It was a lot nicer. Too nice. I just felt like an asshole living there. This is more my style."

Downsizing and liquidating assets. Something is definitely up. Cory puts on a smile, though, and gives him a little toasting gesture with his wine glass. "You've come a long way from sleeping on park benches."

Shawn gulps down the remainder of his glass in one swallow and pours himself some more. "Sometimes I get scared," he says with an embarrassed smile, "like, genuinely panic-attack scared, that I'm going to wake up and find out it was all some really long hallucination."

Cory watches with some alarm as Shawn's hand starts shaking and he has to set his glass down. He covers up the shaking by folding his hands together in his lap. "When I was really fucked up," Shawn says in a voice trying to be casual, "I spent a whole week believing that my dad came back and told me he'd never actually died. We talked. We watched TV together. I think we even went out to a bar together and played pool...then I realized I was just high out of my mind the whole time. And then it was like I lost him all over again."

Cory doesn't know how to respond to this. "I'm really glad you're not in that place anymore, Shawnie."

"Yeah," Shawn agrees, then looks Cory directly in the eyes. "Tell me you're not another hallucination that's going to just disappear after a week."

"I can't tell you that."

"I know."

* * *

They end up watching a movie. Some terrible thing Shawn picks out. Lots of explosions and wooden dialogue. And Shawn gets drunker than Cory's ever seen him, downing glasses of wine one after the other, killing the better part of two bottles by himself. Tipsy himself, Cory hasn't realized that Shawn has killed the second bottle on his own until he stands up after the movie ends and immediately falls over.

"Ow," he says.

Cory remains seated on the couch but leans over to look at him lying on the floor. "You okay, there?"

"Yeah. I'm not getting up, though. I'm staying right here."

"How much did you have to drink?" Cory laughs. He picks up the second wine bottle to see how much is left and is surprised to find it empty.

"Too much," Shawn slurs, "I'm an idiot."

"Bet you have an empty stomach, too," Cory thinks out loud, "And you're, like, 100 pounds."

"I'm like a teenage girl at her first frat party," Shawn giggles.

Cory laughs despite himself. He eases himself down on the floor and sits cross-legged beside Shawn's prone body. "Please tell me you don't drink like this all the time."

"God, I'd have so much higher tolerance if I did. Oh, fuck me." Shawn closes his eyes, "Make it stop spinning."

Cory puts what he hopes is a steadying hand to Shawn's forehead and they sit in silence for a long time. Then Shawn starts babbling and it becomes clear that he's not only very drunk, but very upset about something.

"I was so happy and then I wasn't. I was so happy. I did what I needed to do and I did even better than I thought and I have so much more to give her now. And then I started thinking how you're leaving and I can't have anybody. Why am I not allowed to? This day was so good and then it went to shit because it always does. Why can't I have anybody? Why do I have to be such a fuck-up?"

"Shhh, Shawnie," Cory tries to soothe him while trying to make sense of what he's saying.

"And it's so sad. You've been living a lie since you were fourteen and you'll never get out of it. It's so sad, Cory. You should be happy. It makes me so sad."

Cory can't bring himself to respond to this. But Shawn seems to take this lack of response as a sign of offense.

"I shouldn't have said that. I'm so sorry, Cory, I'm so sorry. God, she's right-I should stay far, far away from everyone."

"Who's right? Who said that to you?"

"Fucking Anna."

"Who's Anna?"

"Oh, god, I'm gonna get sick." The blood has drained completely from Shawn's face and Cory wastes no time hauling him to the bathroom. There Shawn retches up the better part of two bottles of wine. Clinging to the toilet bowl afterward, he pants, "I hate myself so much. I'm glad you're going home."

Cory strips him down and does his best to clean him up. Then, for the second time in two days, Cory carries Shawn to bed.

* * *

In the morning, Cory lets Shawn sleep it off and makes himself coffee and breakfast. He exchanges some not terribly interesting text messages with Topanga, and then washes, shaves, and gets dressed. Around ten o'clock, he puts together a plate of Spam, toast, and eggs and takes it to the bedroom. He is determined that today is the day he gets answers.

Shawn is cranky but sheepish when Cory rousts him and doesn't put up as much of a fight about the breakfast as expected. He grudgingly picks at it while Cory starts with what he hopes will be an easy question.

"How'd you get that scar on your head?"

Shawn stacks a little piece of Spam and egg onto his toast and takes a bite before responding. "I don't know, actually."

"How can you not know?"

"Because I was doing a lot of bad stuff at the time and I went to a party at the house of someone I didn't know and got really fucked up and don't remember anything until I woke up in a hospital waiting room with my head split open."

"Jesus Christ, Shawn."

"I know. On the bright side, I stopped messing around with drugs after that and got some help. So, yay for head injuries."

Cory is not in the mood to joke around about any of this. "How do they feel about you drinking in NA?"

Shawn sighs and sits back against the headboard. "You're not supposed to. You're not supposed to use any mind-altering substances, but I guess for me I feel like I'm able to keep those two things separate. So I never felt like I had to mention it. Until recently, I haven't had anything more than a beer before bed."

Shawn notices the skeptical expression on Cory's face and continues a little sadly, "Cor, I know you think I live this wild, destructive lifestyle, but that's not really the case. I mean, I barely go out anymore 'cause ninety percent of the friends I have in New York are recreational users and I just can't be around that. So I sit at home and write and try to stay out of trouble and, yeah, sometimes I have a beer or a glass of whiskey. You have no idea how boring my life is, Cory. You're the first person I've spent any time at all with in months who I'm not paying to do something for me. And it's _you. _You, who I've spent a lot of years in therapy-and a lot of years before that in a fucked-up haze-trying to get over. You show up and everything is wonderful, but then I know you're leaving again and...I messed up. I couldn't deal with it and I messed up. Because that's what I do. I'm sorry."

Cory scoots closer to him and gives Shawn's knee a little squeeze.

"Okay," Cory says, determined to march onward with his questions, "Who's Anna?"

"How do you know about Anna?"

"You said something about her last night."

"I did?" Shawn swallows a big gulp of coffee, "Jesus."

"So who is she?"

"Anna is a woman I was in a very brief relationship with during a very dark point of my life."

"Were you in love with her?"

"Nope. It was strictly about sex and I haven't seen her in seven years." Shawn busies himself with his eggs and toast again and Cory gives him a minute to eat before continuing the interrogation.

"Who's Sadie Barnes?"

Shawn freezes, his hand holding the fork hovering over his plate.

Cory pushes forward. "I know you've left a lot of money to her and she has a life insurance policy on you."

Shawn doesn't say anything. He sets the fork on the plate and puts the plate aside. There is an expression on his face that Cory cannot place at all. It reminds him of the way Shawn looked at the museum when he had his little panic attack or whatever it was surrounded by the kids. Then he says to Cory very quietly, "Hand me my phone."

Cory does as he is asked and with a shaky breath, Shawn taps through a few screens until he pulls up a photo. He hands the phone to Cory and says nothing. The photo is of a little girl, maybe six years old, posed under a Christmas tree.

"That's Sadie?"

"Yes."

That big smile is unmistakable, as are the eyes. "God, she looks just like you."

"She does."

"I'm confused. I know Chet had kids all over the place, but how could he have a kid who's that young? He died almost ten years ago."

Shawn is very still. "She's not my sister, Cory. She's my daughter."


	7. Chapter 7

Cory stares at the photo of the little girl who looks so much like his friend, letting it sink in. Shawn is a dad. Shawn has a kid. Shawn beat Cory to it by six years. _Shawn _is responsible for someone else's life.

"Shawnie, how did you not tell me?"

Shawn is very still and very quiet. He takes the phone back from Cory, closes Sadie's photo, and sets it on the nightstand. He crosses his arms and folds his shoulders forward, as if protecting himself from a cold wind.

"I don't understand how you could not tell me something like that. I've been here with you for _days_. And not one word. No, 'Oh by the way, Cory, something big happened while you were gone-Had a kid!' Nothing. What is the matter with you?"

Cory stares at Shawn, waiting for a response that doesn't come.

"Well, I want to meet her," Cory says resolutely, "I'm guessing she lives with her mother? Where is that? In the city?"

"She lives in New Jersey." Shawn still is not looking at him. There is no inflection to his voice.

"That's not too far. Let's do it. I want to meet your daughter."

"You can't meet her."

"Why not?"

Shawn starts to say something and his voice fails him. He cocks his head a little and tries again, but still no words come out.

"Hey," Cory says softly and puts his hand on Shawn's arm, "What's the matter?"

"I haven't even met her," Shawn manages finally. He puts on a smile that just looks terrible and broken. "I didn't even know she existed until two months ago. Anna never told me."

The pieces start to fall into place in Cory's mind then. The legal and financial rearrangements. He is setting things up to take care of her. And the self-destructive wasting away. In Shawn's mind, he is as bad as his own father. He's been falling apart these past two months out of guilt. Of course he has. That is exactly how Shawn would react to finding out something like this.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Cory tells him, "You didn't know."

Shawn gives no sign that he's heard him. He leaps out of bed and makes as if to leave, then stops and comes back for his coffee mug. Then he pauses again before he gets to the door and comes back to pick up his plate, like it's suddenly important now that he tidy up. The plate shakes in his hand and the fork bounces off onto the bed, taking the remainder of his toast with it.

"Shit," Shawn says.

"Hey," Cory says, hopping to his feet and taking the plate from Shawn, "Hang on." He sets the plate on the floor and takes the coffee mug from him too. He wraps him in a hug and can feel Shawn's heart beating fast. A sense memory pops into his head of scooping a white rabbit up from its cage in high school biology class. Its heart had felt exactly the same in his hands.

"It's all right," Cory whispers, trying to soothe Shawn's heart like that rabbit's.

"It's not all right," Shawn pulls away from him, "I have fucked up that kid's life already and I didn't even know I was doing it."

"I don't understand. How could you have done anything if you've never even met her?"

"I wasn't there." Shawn is speaking loudly now, throwing the words across the room, "Already she has to be the kid who doesn't have a dad. Because she had to have the shitty luck of having me for a dad."

"But you had nothing to do with that. If her mom didn't tell you..."

"Anna didn't tell me because she knew Sadie was better off not having a dad than having me. Do you know how fucked up I was back then? I was not a good person. I was a shit. I was a nightmare to everybody around me. After I gave up on you, I didn't care about anything. I became an asshole like you've never seen. And I still am."

Cory tries to push aside the immense feelings of guilt and sadness this statement has stirred up in his belly. He sits down on the edge of the bed and keeps his voice low and steady, still trying to soothe the rabbit. "Look at everything you've accomplished in the last few years. You're not whoever you were back then."

"Yeah, and look at last night. Give me an inch and I will fuck things up. I will fuck myself up and take everybody around me with me."

"You had too much to drink. In your own apartment. You threw up. You went to sleep. Who did you hurt?" Even as he says this, Cory realizes that Shawn's thinking the same thing Cory's been thinking since last night: Shawn's always just teetering on the edge between one lousy night and out-and-out destruction.

"Fuck. Fuck!" Shawn kicks the bed. "Look at me! Jesus Christ, I'm a fucking mess. I sold more books last year than any other writer in America and I can't even get them to guarantee me a goddamn life insurance policy. Look at me!" He jabs himself roughly in the ribs in emphasis. "Risk, risk, risk! I'm just a big, fucking risk! I shouldn't be allowed near anybody..."

"Shawn..."

"Goddammit, my head hurts. I need some air." Shawn grabs some clothes quickly and starts pulling them on while making his way to the front door.

Cory scrambles after him. "Don't run away, Shawn. Don't do this!"

Shawn gives him a tired look as he puts on his coat and steps into his boots. "I'm not running away. Don't worry. I'm just going for a walk."

"Please..." Cory reaches out to stop him as he's stepping out the door but Shawn shrugs him off.

"I'll be back," he says and closes the door behind him.

* * *

While Shawn is gone, Cory fixes himself a drink (when in Rome...) and settles into the sofa to think.

_This is what life with Shawn would be like: __drama and self-destruction and worry. Is this what you want? Would you give up everything in your life to have this?_

Cory puts his feet up on the coffee table and leans back, sips his drink, and closes his eyes. He tries to imagine what he would be doing back home right now. Laundry, maybe. Checking the job listings (god, he hasn't checked the job listings in days). Looking up stupid stuff on the internet. Writing up a shopping list. Telling himself not to think. Thinking is dangerous when he's home alone. It always just leads to hating himself or thinking about things (or people) he shouldn't.

It occurs to him that he's been forgetting to hate himself this week. He's done plenty of thinking about how much he hates his life, but he hasn't done much thinking about how much he hates himself. It's surprising to realize this. It feels...good.

_Is this the life you want?_

_I don't know._

He tries to imagine how he would fit in here. Would it just be a series of days like this-Cory waiting and worrying, hoping Shawn comes back from whatever dramatic tear he's gone off on, hoping Shawn doesn't do anything thing too stupid? But didn't he already have this life? How much of the first twenty-one years of his life did Cory spend waiting and worrying on Shawn? And he always came back. Except that last time and Cory doesn't want to think about any of the things that happened after Shawn left and didn't come back that last time. Every new detail he finds out about that period of Shawn's life just breaks his heart that much more. And Cory can't help but feel responsible for those years.

And yet...Despite the drama, despite Shawn breaking his heart a tiny bit more with each new reveal of information, despite all that, Cory feels oddly content sitting here. Maybe even happy. He is in his wheelhouse, after all. There's nothing in his life that Cory does better than manage Shawn's drama. It feels nice to be needed again. No wonder he's felt so empty these past eight years. The one thing he does better than anything has been missing.

_But is this happiness? Is it possible for you to ever be happy at all?_

After an hour or so, Cory hears Shawn's key in the door and his heart leaps up. Shawn shuffles in and sits down beside him still wearing his coat. His cheeks are ruddy from the cold and Cory warms them with his palms, making Shawn smile.

"I'm sorry," Shawn says.

"I love you," Cory replies.

* * *

Shawn slips off his coat and settles in deeper to the sofa. When he speaks his voice is much more calm than earlier and the first thing he says sounds as if he's been rehearsing it in his head for several blocks prior. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I had no idea how to talk about it. And I was worried if you found out you'd just try to fix everything."

Cory wedges himself in beside him so they are shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. "What's so wrong with trying to fix things?"

"Sometimes they can't be fixed."

Cory rolls his eyes. He feels like they've been having this same disagreement their whole lives. Everything can be fixed. Shawn just never believes it. "I'm not going to let you just say 'everything is awful' and act like we can just stop talking about this. I want to know the whole story."

Shawn holds up his hands in surrender.

"So, we left off with you being a terrible, horrible person," Cory says.

"Yes, I'm scum."

"Great. Why did Anna decide to tell you about Sadie now if you're such scum?"

"She didn't. She still thinks I'm scum. Her sister contacted me. I guess she finally found out who Sadie's dad is and when she heard who I was...well, she feels pretty strongly that Sadie's entitled to some of my money."

"She is."

"Of course she is. Anna won't take anything from me, though. She said she's going to get a restraining order if I even try contacting her again at this point. But don't worry-" Shawn sits forward, "I've taken care of things. I'm working it out with my lawyer and we're putting together a trust for her when she's eighteen. The money from the apartment sale, all the options money, a percentage of the books and merchandising...she's never gonna have to worry about college and she can travel, buy a place, whatever she wants. She won't have to worry about any of that. I can make that happen for her, Cory, and I feel good about that."

"That's great, Shawn."

"I'm going to take care of her one way or another. Whether Anna wants me to or not. She can't stop me once Sadie's eighteen."

"She can't stop you _now_. What's your lawyer doing about getting you your rights? Money's great and everything, but what about you getting to see her?"

Shawn sinks back into the sofa and says softly, "I'm not trying to see her."

"What?"

"I'm not. Anna's right on that. I just want her to let me help the best way I can."

"The best way you can? Shawn, money doesn't make everything better."

"Money makes a lot of things better. You'd know that if you never had any."

Cory wants to strangle him. Money's always been such a big hang-up for Shawn and it's so typical that he's hiding behind it now, using it to block all logic. "Well, sure," Cory says, "but it's not a replacement for being her dad."

Shawn sighs. "I don't have any business trying to be somebody's dad. I'd just fuck it up. I'd mess her up. I just...no, Anna's right about that. She's better off not having a dad."

"Not an hour ago you told me that you hated that she had to be a kid without a dad. How is that better than having you now?"

Shawn is quiet for a minute and Cory turns to look at him. There are circles under his eyes and stubble outlining the sharpened angles of his face. The gel in his hair from yesterday has stiffened it overnight into a waxy, haphazard mess. He looks like shit. He looks like he has spent the last two months being as cruel as he possibly could to himself.

Finally, Shawn speaks. "Look at me and Jack. He didn't know his dad and he was a lot better off for it. He didn't end up fucked-up like me."

"This is a completely different situation. You're not your dad."

"Oh, yes I am. I am exactly like him."

"You're not perfect, Shawn, but you're not like him. You would never do to your kid what he did to you."

They both fall silent. Cory had only meant to refer to Chet's failings as a father in a general sense but he realizes with some horror that he's unintentionally implied something else. They have never spoken about whether or not Shawn's dad ever raised a hand to him. Cory never knew if it was true-the idea hadn't even occurred to him until Topanga mentioned offhand once a few years back that she'd always suspected Chet Hunter was a mean drunk. Now Shawn's silence seems to confirm this. Great. One more heartbreaking thing he's learned about his friend this week.

"You would never leave her," Cory clarifies belatedly.

Shawn closes his eyes and puts his head back. "I already left her."

"Yeah, but you didn't do it on purpose."

"Cory, even if I had known at the time, I probably still would have left. I was hellbent on getting as far away and as fucked up as I could and nothing could have stopped me."

"But you're not that person anymore."

"Of course I am. I am always just one little slip-up away from becoming that person again. The only thing reliable about me is that I will reliably fuck up again. I will always find a way to do that. Look at me. Ever since I found out about Sadie I've been sliding backwards. I'm falling apart. It's already started."

"You're not falling apart. You're scared."

"I'm fucking terrified. And I don't have a good track record of handling that well."

"Well, you've been trying to do it all alone. I'm here now. I'm going to help you whether you like it or not."

"You're going to be gone next week."

"I'm here now."

"Oh, great," Shawn says, almost to himself, "You're doing that thing you always do."

"What?"

"You're ignoring your own problems by focusing on mine."

"I don't do that."

"You've _always_ done that. I don't know what you did with yourself all those years I wasn't around. Other than giving strange men head in the Target bathroom. Guess that's a good way to avoid your problems too."

Cory grumbles but doesn't say anything in response to that.

"Anyway," Shawn stands up then with an air of finality, "I gotta get to work. You should go out and do something. Topanga's gonna kill me if she finds out I made you spend your whole vacation playing nursemaid."

Shawn heads into his office and Cory remains in the living room for a while. Then he puts on his outerwear and prepares to leave and find something to do. He pokes his head into the office before he goes.

"You gonna be okay?"

Shawn is already deep in concentration over his laptop. He waves Cory away with some annoyance. "Go. Have fun."

"Yeah," Cory says. He buttons up his coat and heads out.

* * *

Cory gets a danish and a hot chocolate and watches ice skaters at Rockefeller Center, another touristy activity he never took part in while living in New York. It's oddly relaxing, watching strangers go round, alternately gliding and stumbling. He decides that he's going to talk Shawn into going skating here before the week is over. Shawn always loved skating.

When he needs to warm up, Cory starts wandering in and out of stupidly pricey stores. He sees a handbag that reminds him of Topanga-it's exactly the type of thing she'd like and suddenly, more than anything, he needs to talk to her. He ducks out of the boutique and into a bodega where his being on a cellphone will be less annoying. He's surprised and relieved when she picks up.

"Shawn has a kid," he blurts out before she even says anything. Then he proceeds to tell her the whole story, carefully leaving out anything to do with himself. He doesn't specify what led to Shawn's years of self-destruction, but tells her about his drug use and sleeping his way through New York, Europe, and Asia. He tells her about the head injury that prompted Shawn to join NA and how things had been seemingly going well in the years since then until Anna's sister contacted him in November and told him about Sadie. He tells her about Anna refusing to let him have anything to do with Sadie and Shawn's incomprehensible willingness to go along with this.

"I think he's been alone too long," Cory says as he finishes bringing her up to speed, "He's all caught up in his own head and in his head it makes perfect sense to him that Sadie's better off not knowing him."

"Is he sure she's his? There's a lot of people who would take the opportunity to target somebody as rich and well-known as he is now."

"I've seen her picture. There's no doubt that's his kid."

"Well, they're still going to need to do a paternity test. That's just how it works. Especially if it's contested and he's not on the birth certificate."

"God, it's like an episode of _Maury_."

"No offense to Shawn, but his whole life's always been like an episode of _Maury_."

Cory laughs a little to himself. "He used to always say all his family get-togethers were like an episode of _COPS."_

Topanga's tone softens a little. "How's he doing? He's going to pieces, isn't he?"

"You should see him. It's just awful."

There is a moment where she doesn't say anything and he can hear her typing. Then an email notification dings on his phone.

"I just sent you the contact info for my friend Sheila. She's doing family law in Manhattan now. Pretty high-profile stuff. Shawn should get in touch with her. He needs a lawyer who specializes in this. Sheila's great."

Cory's heart swells with sudden gratitude. "Thank you," he says.

"Of course. Tell him if he wants to talk about it, he can give me a call. It's not my area, but I can give him a pretty good idea of what he's probably looking at."

"Thank you. I'll tell him that. If I can talk any sense into him at all."

"Cory? Are you having any vacation at all?"

"Yeah, I-what do you mean?"

"Well, I just want to make sure you're still managing to have some quality time away and not letting everything get sucked up into Shawn's vortex of drama. I wanted you to have some time to just relax and be happy on this trip."

"I'm happier than I've been in years!" The second the words pass out of Cory's mouth, he instantly regrets them.

There is silence on the line.

"Wow," she says finally.

"Topanga...I didn't mean-"

"That says something, doesn't it?"

"Topanga..."

"Listen, Cory, I have to go. We'll talk about this later."

"Please, wait-"

"Also, I should tell you that I didn't get the next round of injections and I've stopped taking the pills."

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm starting to think this is not a good time for us to be trying to bring another life into this family."

Cory is speechless. Topanga sounds like she's about to cry. "Anyway," she continues, "We'll talk about this later. I really do have to go."

She hangs up. Cory just stands there in this Manhattan bodega, staring at his phone. _Shit_.

* * *

Cory gets back to the apartment just as the sun is setting. His stomach is growling and he's preparing himself for a fight to drag Shawn out to dinner. But when he gets inside, Shawn is making spaghetti. There's some sort of lively classical music playing and Shawn is wearing an apron while stirring a pot of red sauce. He leans over and gives Cory a kiss before returning his attention to the stove.

Cory can feel a stupid grin taking over his face as he removes his boots and takes in this little tableau of domestic happiness. Everything that has been occupying his mind for the past few hours fades away.

"It's just jar sauce," Shawn says apologetically.

"It's great." Cory takes a seat at the bar and watches Shawn drain the pasta. Cory stops himself from intervening as Shawn clicks off the burners and starts to pour the pasta into the sauce pan instead of the other way around. As Cory knew it would, the smaller pot overflows slightly, but Shawn takes it in stride. It's not the first time this week that Cory has wondered how Shawn has managed to live alone so long and not yet burn an apartment down. There's still time, though, he supposes, to find out more secrets. There's probably a burned down apartment story still to come.

Shawn plates them up two dinners with a touching amount of care and then takes a seat beside him at the bar. "I know there's a million great Italian places in the city I could take you to, and I'm obviously no great cook, but I wanted to do something nice for you."

"Really, this is perfect."

They eat in companionable silence, the record continuing to play until it eventually runs out. Shawn gets up to flip it over and when he comes back, he doesn't sit back down. Instead he stands at the bar uneasily.

"What's up?" Cory asks.

Shawn smiles slightly uncomfortably. "So, I've been thinking a lot these past few days about what would make you happy," he begins.

"Oh, you have?"

"Yes. And I mean, it's not like just taking up meditation or racquetball is gonna do it. You know, it's not like that's what is missing from your life. It's not that simple a thing."

"Okay..."

"And so I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about it and I think the thing-one of the big things, at least-that could really help is if you had some reason to get up in the morning. Like, something you really wanted to do, every day. I mean, I have it with my writing, right? I love the hell out of those stories; I love making them happen. So even though I have nothing else in the world I want to get up for-no partner I love, no kids or pets to take care of, no co-workers counting on me, no family-I still get out of bed every day because I want to see what happens to that dumb kid in the book. I want to see where I end up taking him."

Cory is just smiling, waiting to see where this is going.

"So I thought about what you like to do. What things always made you happy, what you loved. And I remembered how when we were in high school you really wanted to be a filmmaker. And how that sort of got pushed to the side after you guys got engaged and you started thinking you had to be this good provider suburban dad type. And I know, I know, it's not like you're just gonna drive into Hollywood and start making movies, or something, but I thought maybe you might find doing some kind of film work interesting. More interesting than insurance, anyway, which doesn't seem to be working out all that great from the sounds of it."

Shawn reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a paper and unfolds it. "Anyway, I got in touch with my friend Tom this afternoon. He, uh, works in film production. Advertising stuff, but it's a lot steadier than movie work, actually, from what he says. And he could, if it was at all something you were interested in, take you on in this editing position he's hiring for. It's entry-level stuff, doesn't pay much, but according to Tom it's a really great way to learn a lot and get your foot in the door. He says it's the kind of thing that if you did well at you could really start moving up from there pretty quickly."

Cory is flabbergasted. Shawn gives him another nervous smile and then continues talking a mile a minute.

"And, yeah, it's in New York and I fully understand that there's a 99% chance that you're going back to California next week but...well, it's an option if for any reason you decided you might want to stay. But if you didn't...you know, if you do go back to California and that's all great and everything, Tom did give me the names of some folks he knows in L.A. who you can contact and he says he could easily set you up with something like that out there."

Shawn stops then and waits for some response from Cory. When Cory says nothing, Shawn starts babbling again.

"I mean, it's just an idea. Obviously, you might not want to be starting at the bottom in some other industry. I'm sure you need a 401k and all that stuff and you probably haven't even thought about the filmmaking thing since high school and it's just me being an idiot and remembering some dumb thing from our childhood and still thinking it must be true but..." He cuts himself off and pushes the paper across the counter to Cory. "Well, there's Tom's contact info and the stuff for the guys in California. You can do whatever you want with it."

Cory stares at the notebook paper with Shawn's scrawly handwriting on it.

"Please say something," Shawn begs.

"I really don't know what to say."

"Okay, I overstepped my bounds. I'm sorry. It was just an idea."

"That is the nicest thing anybody's done for me in a really long time."

Shawn gives a little relieved smile. "Really?"

Cory grabs the bib of the apron, pulls Shawn toward him and kisses him deeply.


	8. Chapter 8

_I could do this forever_, Cory thinks, _I could happily wake up to this sight every morning for the rest of my days._

The sunlight is streaming in and Cory is lying on the bed, watching Shawn sleep. It's the only time he ever gets to see him at such peace. He can remember other mornings, throughout their childhood, when Shawn would stay over and Cory would wake before him, watching him sleep a bit before waking him up. It always just felt nice to have Shawn there so close beside him, as if that's where he was meant to be, all the other mornings without him the true aberration. This, today, feels right.

A memory from last night floats into his mind, Shawn writhing as Cory held him down and jerked him off agonizingly slowly, Shawn's great big mouth gasping like a hooked fish...

And another memory-kissing Shawn as if the only way to breathe was through him, tearing at him with his hands and teeth, suddenly _needing_ to have as much of him as he could in any way possible, everything else but that _need_ dropping at the wayside...

And then something else, more a feeling and a thought than anything detailed Cory could articulate-_Shawn fucked me last night._

Cory sighs with contentment, still feeling some residual tingles of pleasure inside his belly and along the insides of his skin. He is so satisfied.

He watches Shawn's chest gently rising and falling in the sunlight. He wants to touch him and kiss him. But he's too drained. Cory doesn't think he could even lift his own arm.

_I could do this forever._

Cory drifts back off to sleep again, happy.

* * *

Cory awakens to kisses on his cheek, the side of his mouth, his ear, his neck, his collarbone. Shawn is leaning over Cory's body, smiling sleepily as he places tiny, light kisses all over him. When he realizes Cory is awake, he gives him one last kiss and then rests his head on Cory's chest with a sigh.

"I'm going to remember you like this forever," Shawn says.

Cory ruffles Shawn's hair a little bit. Shawn is tracing his finger back and forth over Cory's belly and this makes Cory feel self-conscious. "Do me a favor," Cory says, "and remember me in better shape."

"No. I like you just like this. You're perfect."

"Right."

Shawn scrambles onto his knees and kisses Cory full on the mouth. "You're perfect." Then he lays back down beside him. "What do you actually like about California?"

"It's warm. Sunny. Gorgeous all the time."

"Warm and sunny and gorgeous are overrated."

"I've never once had to shovel snow."

"Eh. Builds character, right?"

"I built enough character in Philadelphia to last me a lifetime."

"I guess."

"So this Tom guy," Cory says, eager to change the subject, eager not to think about California, "he's your friend?"

"Yep."

He turns to look at Shawn's face from the side. People always look so different from this perspective. "Does that mean he was also your lover?"

"All my friends are also my lovers. What? Did you think you were something special?"

It takes Cory a second to realize Shawn is joking. Cory shoves him and Shawn laughs. Then Shawn stands up from the bed and starts to stretch. Cory's gotten more used to seeing what Shawn's body looks like these days but it still pains him a little to look at it fully displayed. And it looks ten times worse covered with the bruises and bites and hickeys that fill in the details of the night before. Cory surprised himself at being such an animal, like a thing possessed. He doesn't regret it-he feels a little aroused, actually, looking at his handiwork-but he does feel a bit guilty having been rough with what in the light of day is a very fragile-looking body. He's relieved when Shawn slips on his bathrobe.

"I have no place to be today," Shawn announces as he heads into the kitchen, Cory following like a puppy, "I'm all yours."

The apartment around them is a shambles. Lamps and end tables got knocked over last night and never put back, there are blankets and clothes all over the floor, the spaghetti dishes from last night have crusted over, a glass is broken in the sink, one of Shawn's belts hangs knotted from the knob of the bathroom door, all the shampoo and soap bottles lay in a pile along the bottom of the bathtub, both their cell phones remain where they were hastily wedged at different points when they started ringing-one between the sofa cushions, the other in the pile of coats and scarves they knocked off their pegs in one passionate tussle. Neither of them acknowledges this mess.

Shawn sets up the coffeemaker and Cory takes a seat at the bar. "I really think you should call that lawyer today," he says.

Shawn's mouth forms into a tight line as he measures out the ground coffee and dumps it in the filter basket. "I told you, we're not talking about this anymore."

"I just think it wouldn't hurt to know what your options are."

Shawn slams down the top on the coffeemaker and switches it on to brew. "Hey, you know my friend Tom?"

Cory leans forward expectantly.

"I did fuck him. A lot. We fucked each other's brains out. On a regular basis."

Cory scowls. "Why did you tell me that?"

"Because you annoyed me. And it's our last day together and you're already ruining it."

He's so dramatic sometimes. Cory decides he isn't going to respond to this and give Shawn the satisfaction of engaging in the petty argument he's angling for. He ignores him instead and Shawn stalks off to brush his teeth and shave. Cory picks the shattered glass out of the sink and puts last night's dishes under soapy water.

By the time the coffee is brewed and Shawn comes back to get a cup he seems to have gotten over his desire to pick a fight. He pours a mug for Cory and slides it across to countertop to him as a peace offering of sorts. Then he leans back against the fridge, cradling his own mug. "So, what do we do with our last day on Earth?"

"I thought I'd take you ice skating."

This is clearly not an answer Shawn has been expecting. After a surprised second, though, a smile breaks across his face. "Well, obviously."

* * *

Shawn hasn't strapped on a pair of skates since he left Philadelphia in 2000, but Cory assures him he won't have forgotten how to do it. Sure enough, after a few wobbly touch-and-go minutes, Shawn settles into a decent skating groove.

Cory's been skating much more recently-he and Josh have made it a Christmas tradition of sorts to go at least once while Cory's home visiting for the holiday. He talks about this fondly as they skate around, his mouth curving into a smile as he speaks, the way it always does when the subject is Josh.

"How old is he now?" Shawn asks.

"Nine in February."

"God, nine is a fun age."

"Yeah. Remember the first time Eric took us skating at the mall?" Cory smiles, remembering Eric struggling to teach them to stand on their skates when they both were falling over themselves trying to do jumps and flips.

"I loved when he would do stuff like that. It was like I got to have brothers."

"How's Jack doing?"

"Okay, I guess. We don't really talk much. Working for his step-dad now. His wife's a doctor."

"Wow."

"Yeah. She seems pretty cool. I wish I knew them better."

"Do you see them on the holidays?"

Shawn shrugs. "I didn't for a long time. Like I said, I was not a model guest at the wedding, so I stayed away for a while. I had Christmas dinner with them last year, which was fine, but we didn't have much to talk about. They invited me this year, but I just didn't feel like I could deal with that on top of everything else."

"My parents would love it if you spent the holidays with them sometime."

"I don't think your wife would love it."

"Topanga still cares about you. She's the one who insisted we have dinner with you tomorrow."

Shawn exhales deeply. "Yeah, can't say I'm looking forward to that."

They just glide along side by side for a while, letting the piped-in music fill the air between them. Cory finds that the rhythm of skating in long ovals around the rink is great for letting your mind wander. He thinks about the possibility of moving into film editing work. The film stuff was a dream he packed away long ago-majoring in business just seemed so much more practical and responsible. The idea of testing the waters with film again is exciting. He could always go back to insurance if he hated it. It's not like he'd accumulated any real seniority or accomplishment in insurance; he'd mostly spent all his time there starting out at a place, getting laid off, searching for another position, starting out in a new place, then getting laid off again. With this thing Shawn had worked out for him, he'd still be starting out, but at least it was something different, something he actually found interesting. God knows it had to be less soul-killing than insurance...

"I wish I could teach her to skate."

Cory looks over at Shawn, having been lost in thought, "Who?"

"Sadie."

"Oh." Cory doesn't say anything more than that, hoping to tread lightly on this subject and keep Shawn talking about it.

"It's just...you know, stupid stuff like that. Part of me really wishes I could do that."

"Mmm." Cory keeps his eyes on the ice, not wishing to seem like he's paying too much attention.

"Like Career Day. Remember when we had to do that for Turner's class? I'd like to come to her class and talk about what I do for a living. That'd be cool, right? A dad who writes kids books?"

"That'd be awesome."

"Hey, check this guy out," Shawn says, nodding toward a skater a few yards ahead of them, "King Douche."

Cory reluctantly lets this conversation drop and then laughs when he sees who Shawn's talking about. There_ is_ something very douchey about that guy. The more they watch him, the more they both start cracking up. They start laughing so much that Cory guides them to the wall so they can hang on it and work through their hysterical giggles without trying to skate at the same time. They hold onto each other and the wall, shaking with laughter, then eventually panting, trying to catch their breath. Shawn grins at Cory and Cory grins right back.

After they have composed themselves, they attempt to get back to skating. As they move back from the wall to the rink proper, someone skates up too quickly from behind and ends up knocking Cory's shoulder as they pass-it's King Douche. Of course it is.

"Hey!" Shawn yells after him, "Watch it, Douche!"

The force of the shove, though, has thrown Cory off-kilter. His arms flail for a few seconds, then he goes down, sailing on his ass into the crowd of skaters parallel to them.

"Cor!" He hears Shawn call after him. Then everything is a blurry jumble of arms and legs and mittens and pain.

When the chaos clears, Cory is lying on the ice with a pile of other skaters, staring up at the cloudless January sky. Then the sky is eclipsed by Shawn's worried face. "You okay, Cory?"

"I think so." He accepts Shawn's hands as he pulls him to his feet. "Ow!" A wave of pain shoots through Cory's thigh as he tries to stand. He starts to fall back down but Shawn catches him.

"Okay," Shawn says, "Okay. Let's just get off the ice." He wraps Cory's arm over his shoulder and carefully skate-walks him over to one of the benches outside the rink.

"Ow," Cory says as Shawn sits him down.

"Ow," Cory says as Shawn begins squeezing the bones of Cory's legs, working his way down from the top down of one then the other.

"Ow," Cory says as Shawn does the same with the bones of Cory's arms, wrists, and hands.

"Well, I don't think you broke anything," Shawn says finally.

"Ow," Cory says for no good reason.

Shawn shakes his head at him. "Baby."

He starts unlacing Cory's skates and when he has removed them both, he stands up. "I'll go get our shoes. You stay here and don't get hurt again."

Cory waits on the bench in stocking feet for what feels like an interminable amount of time. Then Shawn returns with Cory's boots, puts them on his feet for him, laces them up, then pulls Cory up onto his shoulder again. "Come on," he says, and begins marching him down the block.

"Are you taking me to a hospital?" Cory asks.

"You don't need a hospital. You are _such _a baby."

"Where are you taking me?"

"You'll see."

At the end of the block, Shawn walks him into a doughnut shop and sets Cory down in a booth. "Stay here and don't get hurt again," he repeats.

He returns a short while later with a dozen doughnuts and two paper cups of hot chocolate. Cory has not realized until that moment how hungry is he is.

"Shawn," he says, "You always know exactly what I need."

Shawn rolls his eyes and helps himself to a maple-glazed. "Nudnik," he mutters.

* * *

They take a cab back to Shawn's apartment, having determined, after much discussion and consulting of webMD on their phones, that Cory has not sprained anything but likely just pulled a muscle.

Cory rearranges himself stiffly across the back seat, wincing. One of those damn tourism/advertising TV's is blaring in the back of the headrest and Shawn turns it off, amazing Cory. He hadn't realized that was an option.

"Hey," Shawn complains as Cory elbows into him, trying to find a comfortable way to sit, but Shawn scoots to allow Cory more space. "That better?" he asks when Cory seems to have found the least-painful way to scrunch in the back of a cab.

"I guess it's as good as it's gonna get."

"It shouldn't be too long a ride," Shawn tells him, "I'll get you some ice and painkillers when we get home."

_Home. _Cory wishes it was home they were going to.

Shawn groans and sits back against the seat. "I never want to see another doughnut again."

Cory smiles a little. He'd managed to get Shawn to eat four of the doughnuts, a minor triumph. Sweet cakey things have always been Shawn's weakness. Cory's mother used to make a cream cheese and carrot cake thing that nobody in her own family ever really liked but Shawn was nutso for it, so Amy made it all the time. Of course she did, Cory thinks, looking back now. She always sent Shawn home with the leftovers.

And another memory pops into his head. Paramus. Amy always liked to take a big post-holiday shopping trip up there and she'd take Cory and Shawn along for the ride. They adored being on their own at that big mall while she shopped. And somewhere along the line they'd discovered this fancy department store restaurant that served an amazing, three-layer chocolate cake. And it became a tradition that the two of them would always share a slice of that cake when they went to Paramus, two gawky teenage boys sticking out among the old lady department store crowd, giggling over a shared piece of chocolate cake. God. No wonder everybody always made jokes about them.

"What's twelve minus four?" Shawn asks, out of the blue.

"Eight."

He laughs. "You ate eight doughnuts."

"Don't remind me."

Shawn grins. "You're my favorite."

"Favorite what?"

"Everything."

* * *

The snow turns into a slushy rain after they get back to the apartment, which feels appropriate for their last night together before Topanga's arrival. There is also an enormous purple bruise across Cory's backside and upper thigh, which also feels appropriately ominous.

They both manage to maintain a cheerful enough front for a while, though. Shawn puts on records, they order take-out, Shawn shakes his hips a little as he waits on Cory hand and foot.. Shawn tells Cory the plots of the upcoming Cheaty O'Zero books. Cory recounts for Shawn the ridiculous fiasco that was Eric's wedding on a cruise ship. But as the hours tick by they both grow quieter and a little more morose.

Cory sits, propped up his pile of pillows, with an icepack on his leg and listens as Shawn's initially funny tale of ridiculous women he slept with on his travels transitions into a sad account of visiting Angela with her then-new husband at the military base in Germany.

"This big, moose of a guy with a crew cut and no sense of humor...as far away from me as you can possibly get. And he can't stand me. Can't stand me one bit. God, it was the most uncomfortable dinner. She kept asking me all these questions but, you know, my life wasn't exactly G-rated at that point and so I was all cagey, not wanting to tell her anything because I knew she'd be disappointed and it'd just give Major Moose more reason to hate me. So she starts telling me about their life and being an army wife just like her mother was, everything revolving around him and how there wasn't any reason for her to finish college and she was looking forward to just being a wife and a mom now...all I could think was that she was throwing her life away for this...for this _asshole_. It made me so angry..." Shawn's face darkens and Cory watches his hand tracing around and around the rim of his glass as he continues, "I let myself get totally shitfaced even though I was already, you know, on a lot of stuff. I was so angry that I just didn't care. It was awful. I can't believe she still talks to me after that night."

"Shawnie?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me something good that came out of that time. I need to hear that _something_ worthwhile came out of all that."

Shawn looks perplexed and Cory can see him thinking about this. "Oh," he says finally, "When I was getting clean, they told me to write to help keep my thoughts straight. And I started writing a story about this kid from a trailer park who solves mysteries. That seems to have worked out."

Cory smiles. "Fair enough."

"Okay, your turn."

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me one good thing that came out of all those years for you." There isn't anything playful in Shawn's tone. He's looking confrontational; he's been spoiling for a fight all day. Cory finds this incredibly irritating.

"What are you talking about? There were plenty of things. It's not like_ I_ ran off and spent years trying to destroy myself every way possible."

"Yeah? Nine years. Nine years since you married her. How are you better off?"

"Shawn..."

Shawn's eyes grow wide with outrage. "And now you're going back. You're choosing it all over again."

Cory throws his head back in exasperation. "I'm not choosing anything. That's my life. I'm married to her. I love her."

Shawn leaps to his feet. "No you don't. You never did. You loved me. You loved the _idea_ of her. Of your life with her. You left me for the idea of a life. Now I want you to tell me if it was worth it."

Cory would be startled by how angry Shawn is if he wasn't so angry himself. "I left you? I never went anywhere. You're the one who left."

"You left me the day you married her."

"Oh, for god's sake, Shawn..."

"How did that life work out for you? Huh? How did that all turn out?"

Shawn is trembling with rage. It brings to mind that awful, last fight they had eight years ago. Cory had hurt Shawn that day. He hadn't meant to, really, but part of him did, and he has never stopped being horrified of this memory. Flooded with shame, Cory turns his head away from him and replies in a low, quiet tone.

"Like crap. Okay? My life has been complete and utter crap for nine years. Are you happy?"

"No. No, I'm not happy. Why would I be happy about that?"

"Because you win. You're right."

"Cory..." Shawn's voice is soft with regret now. He sits back down beside him. "That's not winning, Cor. Winning would be seeing you happy. All I ever wanted was to see you be happy. That's why I left. You said that was what was going to make you happy and so I decided I needed to get out of the way and let that happen. But it didn't make you happy. And it is fucking _killing_ me to watch you going right back to that."

Cory still can't look at him. He closes his eyes and wills this stupid fight to end. It has been going on for the better part of a decade now and he is so, so tired. "What do you want from me?"

Shawn doesn't reply immediately, just sits there very still beside him. Then he says, "I want you to start believing that you deserve to be happy. You know? Whether it's here with me or somewhere else-with someone else, whatever-you should be happy...you were such a goddamn happy kid. I don't want to live in a world where that kid doesn't exist anymore..."

Cory sighs. "I'm trying, Shawnie. I really am."

Shawn puts his arm around him, pulls him close, and kisses his head. "I know. I just...I want to help."

"I can't take back what happened."

"Would you? If you could? You said a couple days ago that you wish you had a time machine. If you did, would you go back?"

"And do what?"

"Choose me."

Cory looks at Shawn, his pleading eyes. Cory tries to stay cynical-he's still angry at being put on the spot like this, angry that Shawn keeps asking him impossible things-but he can't do it, facing that _need_. "Of course I would," he says.

Right before him, Shawn's eyes start to moisten and turn red around the edges. _Oh, god, Shawnie..._

"Then why the hell won't you choose me now?" Shawn is back on his feet again, trying to cover up his impending tears with sheer volume but his quavery voice is giving him away.

"It's not a choice I have right now."

"How is it _not_?"

"That's my life there. I chose it a long time ago and I don't get to just walk away from it ten years in. People don't do that."

"Why the hell not? What is stopping you? People don't _do _that? What people? Wh-what about ten years from now? You'll be another ten years older. Will you be ten years happier? How long do you have to keep paying for a choice you made when you were 20?"

"That doesn't even make sense. Shawn, you don't get to just have a do-over on your life. That's not how it works."

"Of course that's how it works. You think I'd even be here right now if I hadn't gotten a do-over? You don't think I'd be dead or in prison right now?Life is handing you a do-over. Why won't you take it?"

Cory puts his head in his hands. Then a thought occurs to him. He raises his head and says quietly, "Life is handing _you_ a do-over. Why the hell aren't _you_ taking it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"It's pretty much the biggest do-over of your life. You get to do-over everything your shitty parents ever did wrong."

"Oh, fuck you. We are _not_ talking about that."

"You're too chickenshit to even try. You just want to throw money at it and make it go away."

"That is not what's happening. Fuck you."

"That's exactly what's happening. The universe is giving you this incredible opportunity and you're just coming up with reasons to run away. Man up and stop acting like your dad. You're not him. Stop behaving like you are."

Shawn Hunter speechless is a very rare thing. Cory watches him in amazement, his eyes bulged out in rage, tears streaming down his face despite his best efforts, and his mouth working overtime to locate some retort that just can't be found. Shawn's hands form into fists and Cory is alarmed as Shawn starts to pound them against his own legs. "Goddammit," Shawn finally manages to spit out, "Goddammit!"

Then all the rage seems to drain right out of him. His shoulders cave in, his fists drop to his sides, and he throws himself back onto the couch, a tiny heap of a man. Now it's his turn to put his head in his hands. "You're absolutely right," he mutters.

* * *

They come to no resolutions about anything that night. Shawn is an exhausted shell with no energy left to challenge Cory, and Cory doesn't bring the conversation back around to California or Topanga again. He talks Shawn into sending a brief email to Topanga's lawyer friend, mentioning Topanga's name. They're both surprised when she replies back a few minutes later, offering Shawn an opening in her schedule for the next afternoon.

"We should go to bed, then," Cory says after Shawn confirms the meeting. He gets Shawn's sleeping pill and water glass for him without even really thinking about it, knowing in the back of his head that this is something he would often do were he to stay here. It would be a lifetime of little gestures to keep Shawn on track.

"But it's our last night together," Shawn says sadly. This night has not gone the way either of them wanted it to, dying not with a bang but with a whimper.

"We can call last night our last hurrah instead," Cory offers, "How about that?"

Shawn smiles, recalling their activities of the night before, and takes his pill, guaranteeing he'll be dead to the world within the hour. "When I look back on this week, I'll reverse last night and tonight, then. That's a good idea."

"You're the writer," Cory laughs, leading Shawn to bed, "Make it whatever you want it to be."

Under the covers, in the dark, when Cory thinks Shawn must be just about asleep, Shawn whispers, "I don't ever want to make her feel the way my parents made me feel. That's what scares me the most."

Cory tightens his hold around him. "You won't let yourself do that."

"What if we're all just destined to make the same mistakes?"

"I don't believe that's true."

"S'fate," Shawn murmurs, his voice getting slurry now.

"Maybe fate is that your parents made those mistakes so you would know not to make them yourself."

"Thass nice...I like tha...s'like...Feeny..."

Cory smiles to himself at the compliment. He thinks about something else reassuring he might say, but then recognizes the change in Shawn's breathing. He's gone for the night.

Cory wishes he could have taken one of those pills himself, for it is a long time still before he falls asleep. He holds Shawn's warm, reassuring body, but his mind will not rest.

_What if we're all just destined to make the same mistakes?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** _As I was about to post this chapter, I realized that the end of it sounds like it could be the ending of the story itself (on a very bum note, no less). It's not! There's still a few more chapters to go after this. Anyway, thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing. I really do love hearing what folks are thinking. _

* * *

"I don't want you to go."

Shawn is laying on the living room rug, arms folded behind his head. He is wearing nothing but his boxers, having refused to dress out of some form of poorly thought-out protest.

Cory steps over him, grabbing up all his belongings and articles of clothing that have somehow found themselves strewn about the apartment. His leg and hip still hurt from his wipe out on the ice the day before, but he ignores the pain. "Have you seen my blue striped socks? I had them on the other day."

"I don't want you to go," Shawn repeats.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna leave Topanga stranded at the airport."

"That's not what I meant."

"Those are my favorite socks. I don't want to lose them." Cory wanders into the bedroom.

"I'll just mail them to you when they turn up," Shawn calls to him, "I'll send them out to you in _California_."

In the bedroom, Cory continues picking up stray items of clothing, trying to separate what's his and what's Shawn's. Somehow, everything has gotten tangled up. And it's not just the clothes.

He sits down on the edge of the bed and takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to let all this go but somehow it's still happening. He closes his eyes and tries to steel himself. Then something soft hits his chest and drops into his lap. He looks down and sees his blue striped socks, balled up.

"Found 'em," Shawn says from the doorway.

"I'm sorry," Cory says softly.

Shawn shrugs. "I was pretty good about not getting my hopes up. So, dinner tonight? Me and you and the Mrs.?"

Cory watches him shift his weight from one foot to the other, his hip bones protruding beneath the waistband of his boxers. "That's the plan. Promise me you'll eat something before then."

Shawn comes to sit beside him. "If I looked better, would you stay?"

"That has nothing to do with anything."

"Would it be harder for you to go? If I looked more like that guy you were in love with?"

"It's hard no matter what," Cory says. He turns to Shawn and kisses him, then looks him straight on in the eyes. _Those eyes. _"And I love you no matter what you look like. But I need you to take care of yourself. I can't be here and I need you to do that for me."

"Don't go."

"You should get dressed. You don't want to be late for the lawyer."

"Don't get all excited. It's just a preliminary meeting to find out if I even have a case."

"Of course you have a case."

Shawn lays back on the bed and groans. "Please don't go."

"Shawnie..."

"What time do you have to leave? Like, absolutely go in order to still make it?"

Cory puts his head back to do the math. "Ten, I guess. If I leave by ten I can still drop my stuff off at Jim's place and get out to JFK by the time her plane gets in."

"Okay." Shawn grabs his phone from the nightstand and holds it in front of Cory so he can see him set an alarm for 9:55. "You're mine 'til then."

* * *

Shawn surprises him in that he doesn't put a single move on him. He chooses instead to spend their final time together holding Cory close and still. But this should not be surprising, Cory thinks. Sex long ago stopped meaning much on personal level to Shawn. Being close to him like this, allowing himself to be seen vulnerable with someone is much more rare. Cory knows this is a privileged kind of intimacy that Shawn reserves for very few.

As the clock ticks down, Shawn holds Cory. Cory listens to him breathing and takes in his scent, Shawn who has always smelled like home and love and childhood and security. Shawn nuzzles his face into the back of Cory's head.

"Your little curls," he says, half-silly, half-sad, "I met a guy once in Barcelona who had curls like yours. I started crying while he was giving me head. He thought I was such a psychopath."

"I had my own doppelganger."

"You did. You had your share for sure."

"I don't want to go, Shawnie."

"I know."

"But I have to."

"I know."

"Maybe I could come back. Every year, or something."

"I don't want to be your mistress, Cor." Shawn kisses Cory's ear. "Stop talking now."

And then Cory finally allows himself to cry. The tears just start streaming.

"Hey! Hey now," Shawn says as they both sit up, "You can't do this. You'll look all red and puffy for Topanga."

"I don't care," Cory mumbles, feeling like an absolute baby. He's flat-out blubbering now.

"You're gonna make _me _cry," Shawn says, his voice quavering.

Cory looks at him and sees it's too late. Shawn's getting all red and misty. And Cory starts to laugh. He starts laughing and sobbing at the same time, snot exploding out of his nose.

"Oh, god," Shawn laughs, despite the tears streaming down his cheeks, and kisses Cory's snotty, wet, blubbering face. "I love you so much."

This sets Cory off on another round of hysterical laugh-sobs until he feels like he's hyperventilating.

"Shhh, shhhh," Shawn soothes him, pulling him into a hug and holding him there, "It's all right. It's okay."

Cory breathes against him, choking out sobs and snot and odd bits of laughter, pulling in hitched breaths. Eventually, he calms enough that Shawn releases him. Shawn leaves the room and returns, having fetched a glass of water. As he sits down to watch Cory drink it, the alarm goes off on his phone.

With a deep sigh, Shawn picks up the phone and switches it off. He smirks and wipes his eyes with the back of his arm. "And now I turn back into a pumpkin."

* * *

Topanga's flight is behind schedule but Cory gets to the airport on time, so he ends up hanging out around the baggage claim, spending way too much time thinking. His first thought, of course, is that this could have been time he was spending with Shawn. But he banishes that thought and tries to think about something else. What is Shawn doing right now? He checks his watch: 12:36. Should be on his way to meet with Topanga's lawyer friend. If he actually goes. What if Shawn doesn't go? What if he blows this off and wanders off in search of a new way to destroy himself? What if he does this and never comes back? What if this was the last time Cory will see him?

_Stop it. Stop thinking about Shawn._

Topanga. Topanga. Topanga. He's supposed to be thinking about Topanga right now. Oh, god, he doesn't want to do that either. What in the world is he going to say to her? How is he going to interact with her in person after everything that's gone on this week? How the hell is he going to keep her from guessing that he's pretty much spent the five days prior in bed with his best friend, passing back and forth each other's hearts and secrets? How do you just act like that never happened? Like you haven't spent the past five days fantasizing about leaving your wife for your childhood best friend? Cory is not good at pretending. Cory is a terrible liar. Cory always gets caught.

_Oh, god, what the hell do I think I'm doing?_

Desperate to stop this anxiety loop in his head, Cory pops over to a deli cart and buys himself a bagel and some sort of sugary coffee drink. He finds a seat under a TV screen on which two pundits are yelling at each other about politics. The racket is comforting in that it drowns out his thoughts a bit. Bagel. Coffee. Cory concentrates on these. Bagel. Coffee. Shawn. No. Bagel. Coffee. Bagel. Coffee. Bagel. Coffee. Topanga and Shawn. Bagel. Bagel. Bagel. Shawn. Dammit.

And then Topanga is there, walking toward him with her roller suitcase. She is wearing her usual traveling outfit of yoga pants and a pull-over, hair pulled up in a bun, glasses on instead of her contacts. It is how she looks at home, as opposed to how she generally looks when she leaves the house, done up in her professional-lawyer-making-partner look. It always feels like an intimate privilege, getting to see her like this instead of that. Cory watches her approach and feels a wave of affection followed shortly after by guilt. He tosses out the remainder of his bagel and walks toward her.

"Why are you limping?" She asks when they meet.

"Oh," Cory brushes it off, taking her bags and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, "I took a fall on the rink yesterday."

"You went ice skating?"

"Yeah."

"Wow." Topanga is definitely surprised by this. Then she smiles. "You went with Shawn, didn't you?"

"He had nothing to do with me falling."

"How is it that you still always get into trouble with him? You're grown men."

Cory shakes his head. He should be smiling at her teasing, but he can't manage it. "How was your flight?" He asks, leading the way out to the line for cabs.

"Long. I really want a shower."

They queue up at the taxi stand. "Jim's got a nice one. There's, like, 1000 shower heads."

"Ooh."

"Actually, I think it's only six."

"Can't wait."

They fall silent and just wait their turn for a cab. Topanga's phone comes out and she is lost to the world for the next twenty minutes or so, responding to emails. Cory is relieved. He watches the cabs lining up and taking off as if he is fascinated by the mundane order of it all. He works to keep his breathing steady. Maybe he can do this after all.

When they do finally get a cab, the headrest TV is blaring obnoxiously again. Without even taking her eyes off her phone, Topanga reaches over and switches the TV off. Cory stares at his reflection in the empty TV screen now. How is it that both Topanga and Shawn had no problem turning off those cab TVs, did it without even thinking twice about it, and yet it never even occurred to Cory that he could? When it was just him in a cab all week, he'd sat like a lump, letting the TV blare on and annoy him. He'd done nothing to change the situation, hadn't even thought of the possibility that the situation even _could _be changed.

Suddenly this feels uncomfortably important and symbolic.

* * *

They manage to successfully avoid talking to each other for quite a while without it seeming weird. Topanga admires the apartment, unpacks her bags, takes a shower, spends a luxurious amount of time doing her hair and make-up after. Cory stays out of her way. He tries to busy himself with little things to keep his mind distracted, but he can't help but think.

Everything feels normal, being back with Topanga. Everything feels almost exactly as it has for the past eight years. Except for one thing: Cory is different. How long will it be before she notices?

Cory checks his phone again. Shawn didn't say he would text him, or anything, but Cory sort of expected that he might. Tell him how the meeting with the lawyer went, check in on how things with Topanga are going. But it's more likely that he's keeping his distance, giving them their space. Then the terrible thought occurs to Cory that this is the way things are going to be from now on. Shawn will keep his distance. Everything will go back pretty much to the way it has been for eight years. Cory has known this rationally to be what would happen at the end of the week, but this is the first time it sinks in.

At least they'll get to see him at dinner tonight. As uncomfortable as Cory fears sitting at a table between the two of them will be, he is glad to get to see Shawn again. It's only been a few hours and already he misses him terribly, feels incomplete without his company. How does that happen so quickly?

They can't avoid talking to each other forever. Dressed and done-up gorgeous-casual, Topanga sits down on the sofa across from Cory and looks apprehensive.

"We need to talk," she says. Those are the worst words in the world. They never portend anything good.

Cory nods in resignation. He sits back in the sofa and fusses with a button-tuft on the arm. He asks, "Why are we stopping the treatments?"

"We're not stopping. I am. For the time being, at least."

"Why?"

"Because I told you, I'm not sure this family is ready for another life right now. I need some time to think about it."

"We've been thinking about it for years. This is all we've talked about for years."

Topanga looks so sad. "Cory, that's part of the problem. I don't know what we have left if you take that away."

"I don't know what you mean," Cory says, even though he does. He knows exactly what she means. "We have almost ten years of marriage. That's what we have. How can you act like that's nothing?"

"I'm not acting like it's nothing. I'm just...I've been realizing, this last week especially, that you're not...you haven't really been _present_."

"I've been on vacation! A vacation by myself that you insisted I take!"

"That's not what I mean. I mean, even when you're here-there-you haven't been present. You're here, but you're not. I have no idea what you do with yourself all day."

"I try to get a job. I keep the house running. I'm sorry if that's nothing to you. I'm sorry I'm not some brilliant lawyer like all those assholes you work with. I'm sorry I'm such a failure at life."

And now she's crying. Goddammit.

"Cory. That's not what I meant. I wasn't trying to insult you. I know what you do all day. What I don't know is what you're thinking all day. I have no idea what goes on in your mind. I have no idea who you are anymore. I feel like you're...somewhere else."

"Maybe it's because_ you're_ always somewhere else." Cory goes for the only real ammo he's got.

"You think if I was home more this wouldn't be happening?"

He sighs. "No. I don't know."

"So you know I'm not crazy, right? I'm not making this up?"

Cory can't bring himself to respond. He's admitting that she's correct without actually having to say it. They just sit there in silence, Cory staring into his lap, Topanga looking past him and crying softly. He should go to her, but he doesn't. He doesn't think she would want that and he can't stand the thought of being refused by her, being pushed off. So he sits.

"Okay," she says resolutely after a long, uncomfortable while, "I'm going to take a walk and get some coffee. I think we need our space."

She gets up, gathers her coat and bag, pauses before she goes. "So, dinner with Shawn at what time tonight?"

Cory clears his throat. "Seven. We don't have to go, though. I can cancel."

"No. That should be fine. I'll be back in time."

And then she's gone. Cory strips his clothes off and crawls into the bed. He doesn't want to think anymore.

* * *

The cab ride to the restaurant is tense, though Topanga puts up a good front to make it not seem so. She keeps up a steady patter of small talk about the city and all the things they pass that have changed or are new. Cory is much less talented at this kind of fake lightness. He tries to respond to what she says, but mostly just answers with non-committal "mmms" and grunts.

The restaurant is nicer than he'd been anticipating. Shawn has picked it out, so Cory had been expecting a dump or at least something a little offbeat. Instead it's the kind of place where he feels self-conscious that he only wore a collared shirt but no tie.

"Oh, this is beautiful," Topanga says, admiring the decor and the attractive patrons.

The hostess informs them that "Mr. Hunter" will be a few minutes late, so they're shown to their table and order drinks.

"How did he pick this place?" Topanga asks, as she accepts her martini.

"He knows somebody who works here. The chef, or something."

"Wow."

"Mmm."

Then Shawn is there. Cory's not sure if he should be relieved or panicked at this, but the sight of him does put a smile on Cory's face.

Shawn has made a effort in his appearance. The hair gel is back, he's freshly shaven, and he's wearing normal clothes again that fit. He even has a tie on. Cory can tell by his movements, though, that he is keyed up and nervous. Still, Shawn puts on his brightest smile for her. "Topanga, Hi!"

"Shawn, oh my gosh, it's good to see you!"

Topanga hides her shock well at seeing what Shawn looks like, though as she greets him with a hug, she makes worried eyes over his shoulder at Cory.

"You look terrific," she says as she steps down from the hug.

"Aw, I look like shit, but that's nice. You look great. The highlights really work for you."

"Thanks," Topanga brushes her hair back slightly self-consciously, "My little monthly splurge."

Cory didn't know Topanga had highlights regularly done. He's not even sure he knows what that entails.

They sit down, Shawn puts his drink order in and they get to catching up. Cory has forgotten how charming Shawn can be when he wants to, especially with women. His skill has not diminished one bit in the years that have passed. Within minutes, Topanga is completely caught up in the story he's telling, giggling in a way Cory hasn't heard in ages. They engage in safely flirty banter, both acting as if Cory is not present. It's incredible to watch. And also familiar. Cory remembers feeling left out sometimes when the two of them would talk like this, an amused meeting of two clever minds, Boring Cory all but forgotten. He feels a little flame of jealousy alight in his chest. But he's not sure which one of them he's feeling possessive about. Maybe both of them. Cory sucks down his drink in annoyance.

Shawn excuses himself to go to the washroom and Topanga sits back in her chair, slightly flushed from her drink and from the lively conversation of the last twenty minutes.

"Well, he hasn't changed a bit," she declares. "You weren't kidding about him looking terrible. But if it wasn't for that, you'd never know anything had been wrong at all."

"He's a good pretender," Cory says sullenly. His drink is empty and he is willing the waiter to come back already so he can order another.

"He always has been."

Cory is watching Shawn on the other side of the restaurant. He's emerged from the mens room but now run into someone he knows at the bar. He's laughing and chatting, looking for all the world as if he's perfectly at ease. Shawn's so good with people. Probably from a lifetime of being dropped in new places and forced to adapt, Cory supposes. It doesn't hurt that he's so handsome, even with the awful haircut. People always like talking to a handsome guy. And he looks great tonight, smiling, well-dressed. Cory watches him laugh and feels again a pang of jealousy. He wants to be the one making that happen.

He turns his attention back to Topanga then and notices she's been watching Cory watch Shawn. There's a strange expression on her face and Cory doesn't know how to interpret it. Thankfully the waiter returns, disrupting the moment. And then Shawn comes back. Everybody is distracted for a few minutes figuring out their dinner orders, asking the waiter questions. When all the orders are taken and the waiter has left them again, Cory decides to commandeer the discussion.

"How was your meeting with the lawyer?" He asks.

"Oh, you saw Sheila," Topanga says with interest, "She's great, isn't she?"

Shawn looks momentarily bombarded with the switch to this subject, but he recovers quickly, putting on his everything's fine/no big deal face.

"Yeah, she's great. Really seems to know her stuff."

"So?" Cory leads.

"So?" Shawn clearly does not want to talk about this. Cory doesn't care.

"So what'd she say?"

Shawn looks down, very annoyed at Cory, but then looks up at Topanga and puts on a fake smile. "She says I have a strong case. I could even pursue joint custody if I want to."

"Oh, Shawn," Topanga clasps her hands, "That's wonderful."

"Yeah," Shawn gulps his drink. "I. Am. Terrified."

Cory has to stop himself from reaching across the table for Shawn's hand. Luckily, Topanga's instincts kick in as well. "Of course you are," she says soothingly, taking Shawn's hand-the hand Cory wanted to take-and giving him a reassuring smile, "This is a really big deal."

Shawn is very still, then he brightens. "Do you want to see a picture of her?"

Topanga leans forward in excitement. "Yes, of course."

Cory scowls in annoyance while Shawn takes out his phone. It took Cory days to pry this information out of Shawn and here in about ten seconds he's volunteering to show Topanga the picture of his daughter. Cory tells himself that Shawn is just getting more comfortable with the idea of Sadie, with actually talking about her, making her real, but Cory can't help but feel jealous. Why is Shawn so friendly with Topanga? She's supposed to be his enemy. Shawn doesn't even seem to care that she's here to take Cory away from him. Why doesn't Shawn care more? Why is this so much easier for him than Cory?

"Oh," Topanga puts a hand to her heart, "She's beautiful, Shawn. Gosh, she looks so much like you."

Shawn smiles, though his eyes seem focused on something a mile away. He takes the phone back and slips it in his pocket.

"What's Sheila doing about you actually getting to meet her?" Topanga asks.

This brings Shawn back to the present moment. He cocks his head and takes another sip of his drink. "She's calling Anna's lawyer. She's says there's absolutely no way I don't get to meet my daughter within the next couple weeks."

"That's great," Topanga says.

Cory nods too, glad for this. "We're happy for you," he tells Shawn.

Shawn switches up the conversation then, asking Topanga how she and Sheila know each other. This sets her off into a long, involved story about law school. When you're married to someone for a couple of years, you've heard all their stories, know all the dramatic pauses, can recite the punchlines. So when Topanga starts telling the story about Sheila and the Whitney case, Cory automatically tunes out. He watches Shawn listen to the story, his face animated with interest. He smiles at all the right points, asks the kinds of questions that Cory never thinks to ask her anymore, just in general behaves as if this is the most enjoyable story he's ever heard. He's being nice and just reconnecting with a friend he hasn't seen in years, but it makes Cory's blood boil. He wants to reach out and slap Shawn, bring his attention back to Cory. Just hours earlier he was crying over Cory, begging him not to go. Now it's as if none of that ever happened. As if he's just an old friend of a married couple, meeting them for dinner while they're visiting New York.

Their dinners arrive and Topanga teases Shawn, warning him that he better clean his plate. "What would Mrs. Matthews think? All her hard work..."

Cory is startled. Did _everybody_ know about the Matthews keeping Shawn from going hungry all those years? Has Cory just been an oblivious moron for all these years?

Shawn laughs and Cory is impressed by how good Topanga is at coaxing him to try things throughout the meal, putting things from her plate onto his to taste, encouraging him to try a bite of this or that on his own plate and tell her what it's like. She's much better at getting him to eat than Cory was. It must be a maternal thing. Or maybe Shawn's just more receptive to women. He's being so damn nice to Topanga tonight. Cory cannot figure out why this is so irritating. When he can't take another minute of it, Cory excuses himself and heads to the mens room.

He stays in there too long, he knows, but he just can't bear to go back out yet. He paces and fumes. Eventually, Shawn comes in, having been sent by Topanga to check up on him.

"What's going on?" Shawn asks.

"Why do you have to be so nice to her?"

"What?"

"With the flirting and the laughing and the eating..." Cory fully realizes he sounds like a petty jerk, but he doesn't care.

Shawn looks exasperated. "What do you want me to do? You're going back to her. I'm making the best of it. She's a great person and she's always been a good friend to me. How do you expect me to behave?"

"I don't know," Cory grumbles.

Then recognition lights up Shawn's face. "You're jealous."

Cory can't quite bring himself to admit this is true, but his lack of response does this for him. Shawn is incredulous. "You're insane, you know that?"

Cory looks at him helplessly. "I know."

And Shawn kisses him. All Cory's irritation melts away with that sweet, small kiss.

Shawn pulls back from the kiss and looks him in the eye, one hand still clasping the side of Cory's face. "You need to figure out what you want. And if what you want is out there, you need to go out there and start acting like it."

He gives Cory one long look after he says this, then heads out back to the table. Not knowing what else to do, Cory follows.

At the table, Cory does his best to smile and in general not be a jealous, insane asshole. The talk is light as they all finish up. Shawn tells a funny story about Jack and this enormous St. Bernard his wife insisted they adopt. Topanga talks about Cory's ill-fated diy attempts to turn their garage into a finished rec room. Then the check comes and, as Shawn insists on paying it, Topanga tells him they'll treat when he comes out to California. And Cory realizes with a sick feeling in his stomach that this is it. This is the last he will see of Shawn for who knows how long. He watches Shawn and tries to burn every little detail about him into his memory so he will not forget.

Somehow they've left the table and are all heading to the front of the restaurant. Shawn puts a hand on Cory's shoulder, a gesture that passes for friendly-like, not intimate, but Cory knows better. Shawn's hand on his shoulder is heavy with meaning, everything that has transpired these last five days weighing it down.

Outside, Shawn gives Topanga a quick kiss and a smile. "It was great to see you," he says.

"Same here. I'm so proud of you, Shawn."

He gives Cory a quick, one-armed hug. "Take care of yourself," he tells him.

"You too," Cory says, "I mean it."

Shawn gives him a little military salute and a smile. Then he buries his hands in his coat pockets, nods at them both and starts heading down the sidewalk in the general direction of his apartment.

Topanga steps to the curb and starts hailing for a cab. Cory follows her but continues to watch Shawn, a small figure in a wool coat moving further away down the sidewalk. "I'll be right back," he says suddenly, "I forgot to tell him something."

Cory's hard sole dress shoes make an echoing clap as he jogs down the sidewalk to catch up with Shawn. Cory puts a hand to Shawn's arm as he reaches him and Shawn turns around in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"I just...I don't want it to end like this."

Shawn smiles sadly. "I know. But you have to go back to your wife." He gestures his head back toward Topanga. "Go. She's waiting."

Cory hesitates, then he wraps Shawn up in a bear hug. He puts his mouth to Shawn's ear and whispers, "I never loved anyone as much as I love you. I'm sorry I screwed that up."

When he releases him, Shawn's eyes are misty. He clears his throat before he says, "Be happy, Cor."

Then Shawn turns away and trudges off. Cory stands still a second, steeling himself. With a deep, shaky breath, he returns to Topanga. She hails a cab, they get in, and they ride back to the apartment in complete silence. Cory puts his head against the window glass and watches the lights flash by, reflecting in the slushy street. _This is my life. Until the end of time, this is it._


	10. Chapter 10

Three days pass and somehow Cory and Topanga manage to not have a substantial conversation about anything. It helps that with her propensity for over-scheduling their social engagements, those three days are pretty much a whirlwind of brunch, lunch, dinner, and drinks dates with everybody Topanga knows who still lives in the area. Cory eats and drinks and smiles his way through all of it, saying very little. No one ever talks to him much at these things anyway-Topanga has always been the star attraction. For once he is grateful for this.

Although they manage to avoid talking, there is still an undeniable rift. Topanga is unusually dismissive of everything he says, mostly suggestions for how to get to their various engagements. She always corrects him on the superior series of trains to take, the better walking route, the spot where they're far more likely to catch a cab. He wants to remind her that he lived in New York just as long as she did, and spent far less of that time studying in a library cubicle, but he doesn't. He just lets her be right.

She is physically standoffish as well. She pulls away every time he reaches out to touch her hair and steps out of his grasp whenever he tries to put a possessive arm around her. At night in Jim's king-size bed, she rolls as far away from him as possible. When he comes to her, cuddles up behind her, there is nothing receptive in her posture. He might as well be trying to cuddle a coat tree. He releases her and rolls back to his side of the bed. He hates having a "side." He'd much rather always be entangled with the ones he loves.

Aside from the coldness from Topanga, Cory is also missing Shawn terribly. He's heard nothing from him in three days and knowing that this is how it will be-for Shawn's own preservation as well as the preservation of the Matthews' marriage-depresses him like nothing else. While Topanga's lawyer friends prattle on about things at lunch, he finds himself wondering what Shawn is doing right now. Is he okay? Is he taking care of himself? Is he thinking about me?

At dinner that night they meet up with Topanga's friend Jen, who is enormously pregnant. Although Cory and Topanga both smile like children's programming hosts and listen attentively as Jen beams about her experience, her hopes and plans, Cory knows he and Topanga are both dying a little inside. On the way back to the apartment, he can't help but say, "I thought you wanted that."

Topanga doesn't turn back from looking out the window of the cab. "I do," she says softly.

"Then why are we stopping?"

"I just...I want to be sure. I told you."

"How can you not be sure? You were plenty sure before. I thought it was what we both wanted. It's what I want-I know that."

"You don't know what you want," she sighs.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It means nothing."

"But-"

"Cory, please. Let's not get into this tonight. I'm so tired."

"Fine." He sits back and closes his eyes. He's tired of this too.

* * *

A few minutes after eleven o'clock that night, as they're winding down and checking email on their laptops, Cory's phone starts ringing.

Topanga glances at it, then passes it to him from the coffee table. "It's Shawn."

Cory frowns and answers. "Shawnie?"

"Cory. Hey."

"Hey...what's up?"

"Listen, I, uh, hate to put you on the spot, but do you think you could come pick me up? I'll pay for the cab."

"Uh..." Cory glances at Topanga, "Where are you?"

"St. Luke's."

"Is that a church? I don't know where that is."

"It's a hospital."

Cory's heart leaps into his throat. "What happened?"

"Nothing. Nothing. It's stupid. I'm fine. It's just...they won't discharge me unless somebody picks me up. I'm really, really sorry. I tried calling a bunch of other people and nobody's answering and I _really_ don't want have to stay here the night. I didn't know who else to call."

Cory takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Topanga is giving him a look and he just doesn't want to deal with it. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

* * *

Cory gives Shawn's name to the front desk at St. Luke's and is eventually shown to a curtained-off portion of a room where Shawn sits in a chair glowering. He has an IV hooked to his arm and a small gauze patch is taped near his temple. "Thank god," he mutters when he sees Cory.

"What the hell's going on, Shawn?"

"Nothing. It's no big deal. These people are just a bunch of assholes afraid of getting sued."

"Why are you here?"

"It's nothing. I fainted."

"You fainted?"

"Yeah. Like a delicate lady in a Victorian novel." He offers Cory the paper cup he's been holding. "Juice?"

Cory ignores him. "Who brought you in?"

"I don't know. Somebody at the bar called an ambulance."

"Just because you fainted?"

"They couldn't wake me up."

"Jesus, Shawn."

"It's okay. Really. I just had too much to drink and I hadn't eaten anything and it all just kinda caught up with me. I'm fine, though. They said so."

"Then what's that all about?" Cory asks, gesturing to the IV.

Shawn shrugs. "Nutrients. I think it's all empty now anyway. I just don't know how to unhook it."

"And what happened to your head?"

He smiles. "They said I hit the corner of the pool table when I went down, but I think it's a coverup for a clumsy EMT."

Cory is so not in the mood for joking. "If you just fainted and everything's hunky dory, why won't they just discharge you?"

Shawn rolls his eyes and looks away. He mutters something but Cory can't make it out.

"What?"

"I may or may not have said some things that led them to believe that I might be a danger to myself."

Neither of them says anything. Cory closes his eyes and tries to compose himself. He is so angry right now he's finding it hard not to just turn around and storm out. Finally, he asks, "Are you?"

"No. I'm not. Really, I'm not."

"Then why do they think that? What did you say?"

"I don't know. I was really out of it when they woke me up and started asking all these questions. I really don't remember what I said."

Cory takes a deep breath and crosses his arms. "What if I don't take you home?"

"What do you mean?"

"Will they keep you here 'til you're better?"

"What are talking about? I am better. I just told you that."

"You're not taking care of yourself. Maybe somebody needs to do it for you if you won't do it yourself."

"I'm not being _committed,_" Shawn scoffs, "If you don't take me home, they're just going to hold me overnight as a precaution."

"Okay. So I'll let them keep you overnight."

"No," Shawn looks panicky, "No, Cory. I hate hospitals."

"Then you should take more care not to end up in them."

"I can't stay overnight. I have to get home."

"Why?"

"Because," Shawn says, then reluctantly gives him the last piece of the puzzle, "I'm supposed to meet Sadie tomorrow."

"Oh." Cory is quiet as he lets the pieces all come together. Shawn's already upset to be losing Cory, Shawn finds out he's meeting his daughter for the first time, Shawn freaks out and goes off the deep end. Perfect Shawn logic. He could kill him. Instead, he keeps his tone steady and asks, "So soon?"

"Yeah," Shawn says, "Sheila's apparently really, really good at what she does. She's a terrifying woman."

"All right," Cory gives in, "Let me go talk to somebody and see what we can do about getting you out of here."

* * *

It never ceases to amaze Cory the amount of paperwork any hospital admittance produces. He and Shawn sit side by side on a modular sofa while a woman with a badge (nurse? attending? file clerk?) goes through the history of Shawn's time at St. Luke's from 8:26 pm to midnight. She runs through the treatment that was administered (Cory is surprised to hear that the cut required two stitches) and the information gathered that led to his diagnosis. The woman is determined that Cory be well-informed before Shawn is released into his care.

There are a lot of medical terms Cory doesn't recognize, but the information is clear enough. Shawn didn't lie to him, though he certainly skipped some of the more troubling details. Like that the last meal he could remember eating was several days earlier (when he dined with Cory and Topanga, Cory presumes). Or that he'd been "behaving erratically" at the bar prior to fainting according to whoever talked to the EMTs. Or that he'd said to a nurse after he was revived that "Everyone would be a lot better off if you hadn't woken me up." Or that, at 5' 7" he is currently weighing in at a whopping 109 lbs (far worse than Cory had dared guess). It is also news to Cory that Shawn had been admitted to St. Luke's two months earlier for what turned out to be a very bad panic attack (Cory bet the timing of this coincided precisely with the news of Sadie's existence) and, according to the records that Cory reads upside-down on the woman's clipboard, he'd weighed a much healthier 132 lbs at that time.

"Jesus Christ," Cory sighs when the whole run-through is done. Shawn continues fiddling with his shirt cuffs, as he has been the entire time. He only comes to attention when the woman with the badge points out several places where he needs to sign. Then she leads them over to the front desk where they both sign several more forms to complete the check-out procedure. When that's done, the girl at the desk slides them their copies of the check-out and billing forms, along with a pamphlet on the care of stitches and two small sample cans of Ensure.

"Oh, for God's sake," Shawn mutters.

Cory takes the paperwork and hands him the cans. "You earned it, Champ."

"Fuck my life."

Cory gives Shawn a sarcastic clap on the back and leads him out of the building. Shawn argues that he'd prefer to walk home, but Cory insists on a cab ride, even for such a relatively short distance. He's not taking any chances. Shawn gets in the cab and throws himself into the seat like a sullen teenager.

"Well, that was humiliating," he grouses.

Cory doesn't reply. He can't even bring himself to speak, he's so angry. Instead, he focuses his attention on texting Topanga, filling her in and telling her he's taking Shawn home and will call in a bit.

Shawn is obviously waiting for Cory to say something, but when he doesn't Shawn says hesitantly, "I'm really sorry about this."

Cory continues to ignore him, keeps his eyes on the middling traffic outside the window.

"Hey," Shawn touches his arm, "I said I was sorry."

Cory finally looks at him. "What does that even mean to you? You're always sorry, then you keep doing stuff like this. If you cared about me at all, you wouldn't. I don't like seeing you like this. I don't want to ever see you like this again. But it's like it never stops."

"I'm sorry."

Cory shakes his head. "Do you have no self-preservation instinct at all? At what point does that actually kick in for you?"

Shawn just shrugs, no longer able to look at him.

"I'm not going to stick around and watch you destroy yourself, watch you destroy everything you have," Cory says.

"You're not sticking around anyway, so don't worry about it."

"I'm not talking about sticking around in New York. I'm talking about sticking around in your life. If this is how it's gonna be, Shawn, just watching you slowly killing yourself, I don't want any part in that. I can't take it."

Shawn is quiet for a while, then he says softly, "I don't think I can take it much longer either."

"Then what are you gonna do about it?"

"Whatever I can."

Cory takes a deep, cleansing breath and sits back. He doesn't like being angry at Shawn; it's like being angry at a puppy. He picks up one of the cans of Ensure that are currently rolling back and forth across the vinyl seat. "You gonna drink this when we get home?"

Shawn makes a disgusted face. "Nah. I'll just...find a way to force myself to eat regular food. Dope up on Xanax if I have to. Anything to get my nerves to stop. Then maybe I can actually eat again like a normal person."

"You're gonna eat that _and_ this," Cory says, tilting the can in his hand, "You're gonna do whatever you have to until you're healthy again. You have someone else to worry about now. It's not just me and you anymore."

Shawn puts his head back and gazes up at the ceiling. "Shit, Cory, I'm so scared about tomorrow."

Cory ignores him and continues his line of thought. "Sadie by all rights should be my goddaughter. And if you live out this deathwish of yours before that asterisk is taken off your life insurance policy, she'll be totally screwed. I'm not letting that happen to her. And you're not either. So you're going to man up and take care of yourself. Starting right now."

Shawn smiles at this. As the cab slows down at the corner by Shawn's building, he hands the driver some cash. Back out on the street, he doesn't head for his apartment. He approaches the diner instead. "I'd kill for a burger right now," he says to Cory, "You want anything?"

* * *

"Everything all right?" Topanga asks when Cory calls to touch base with her.

"As all right as it ever is, I guess. Did I wake you?"

"No. Well, yes, but it's okay. How's he doing?"

"Eh. I think this was maybe a wake-up call for him. Or I hope it is, anyway. He's supposed to meet Sadie for the first time tomorrow."

"Wow. Sheila's good."

"Yeah."

"Listen, Cory, why don't you just stay there tonight? I don't want you out on the streets at this hour and it sounds like he needs you."

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not. I'll give your excuses to Jon and David tomorrow."

"I forgot about that."

"It's okay, it's just lunch. I'll see you back here and we'll get dinner together."

"Just you and I?"

"Yeah. We need a night together."

"I'd like that."

"Okay. Well, tell Shawn I love him, even though he's an idiot."

"I will."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

Cory ends the call and heads back into Shawn's apartment. He finds him sitting up on the bed, legs stretched out, hands folded across his chest. He looks remarkably at ease.

"Everything okay?" Shawn asks.

"Yeah. I'm staying here tonight."

"Is that a 'staying here because we're worried Shawn might throw himself off a bridge' or a 'staying here because I'm in the doghouse with my wife'?"

"It's a 'staying here because it's the middle of the fucking night and I'm exhausted.'" Cory starts to undress.

"Well, either way I'm glad. If my idiocy can do nothing else, at least it has brought us back together."

Cory climbs into bed beside him. "How you feeling?"

"Like I'm gonna puke."

"Is that because of Sadie or because of the cheeseburger?"

"Probably both."

Cory leans over to kiss his cheek softly, then lays back on the pillow. "You're gonna be fine. Did you take your pill?"

"Yes." Shawn slides down off of his elbows, snaps off the lamp, and burrows up next to Cory. "Thank you for being here."

"Of course."

Cory feels a pressure against his chest as Shawn leans onto him, puts his mouth to Cory's and kisses him. The warmth of Shawn's tongue is incredibly reassuring. He is alive and he is okay and everything-for this moment, at least-is all right.

* * *

"Oh, god, I can't do this," Shawn says, for the fifteenth time this hour. He is walking stiff-legged around the apartment, waving his hands about nervously, completely failing at the task of getting dressed.

"It'll be fine," Cory assures him, for the fifteenth time.

"Oh, no it won't. Oh, god..."

"Shawnie. Shawnie, chill out." Cory puts an arm around Shawn and leads him back to the bedroom where he'd been in the middle of putting on his socks then abandoned the task when he hands started shaking so bad. He sits him down on the edge of the bed and says, "Get your socks on."

Shawn takes a deep breath, exhales, then pulls one sock over his foot.

"Good," Cory says, like he's encouraging a child. Or a crazy person. "Now do the other."

He puts on his other sock then looks at Cory hopelessly. "What am I doing?"

"You're getting dressed, going to Jersey, and meeting your daughter."

"Oh, god, I can't do this." Sixteen times.

Cory squats down opposite Shawn and kisses him. Shawn is not unresponsive, but he does not warm to the distraction either. Cory runs his hands down Shawn's chest, lets them settle suggestively near his cock, but Shawn just gives him a look. _Nice try. This isn't gonna happen._Then he starts shaking again. Cory puts his hands on Shawn's shoulders and tries to still him. His face looks waxy and faint which, considering yesterday's adventure, makes Cory uneasy.

"Did you say you have Xanax?" Cory asks.

Shawn gives a reluctant nod.

"Topanga takes one every time she flies. She says it works great for calming you down when you're freaking out."

"Yeah, it does. It's good stuff. Too good. I don't wanna take it."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm afraid if I start using it, I won't be able to stop. I've had that bottle for two months and you know how many times I've let myself take it? One time. I don't trust myself, Cory."

"Where is it? Can I see it?"

Shawn looks puzzled, but he gets up to go retrieve the bottle. At least the task is temporarily distracting him from his panic, Cory thinks. Shawn goes to the closet, rummages around for a minute, then emerges with a shoebox that's been rubber-banded shut. He sits back down on the bed, pulls off the rubber band and takes out an orange prescription bottle from beneath a pile of letters. Cory wonders briefly if those letters are the same ones Virna sent him all those years ago, but the thought flits away as Shawn hands the bottle to him.

"Did you get these prescribed after you left St. Luke's the last time?" Cory asks, glancing at the label on the plastic bottle.

"Yup. That and the sleeping pills."

"And you've only taken it one time since then?"

"You can count them if you want." Shawn looks a little bit offended.

Cory isn't trying to accuse him of anything, though. He's working to put together the story of Shawn's life these past two months. Anxiety bad enough that he stopped sleeping for days at a time, landed in the hospital thinking he was having a heart attack, dropped twenty-three pounds off his frame in a matter of weeks...and he only resorted to taking an anti-anxiety med once?

"All the stuff that's been going on...what was it that made you actually take a Xanax?" Cory asks.

"I took one the night you first came into town."

"Oh." Cory is weirdly touched. He looks at Shawn, his poor wreck of a friend who he loves so much, and smiles. "You still scared of me now?"

Shawn laughs. "I wasn't _scared.._." Then he gives Cory an exhausted look. "No, I'm not," he says.

"All right. Well, I think maybe you should take one just for today. And then maybe Sadie won't be so scary either after this."

Shawn hesitates, then he drops his shoulders in exasperation. "Yeah. I don't know how else I'm gonna do this."

Cory removes one small pill from the bottle and hands it to Shawn. Then he screws the cap back on and tucks the bottle in his pocket. "I'm gonna hold onto that for you, okay?"

"Yeah," Shawn agrees, "Thanks."

"Want me to get you water?"

"No, these guys taste nasty. I need something to cover up the aftertaste."

"Got just the thing." Cory pads off to the kitchen and returns with one of the cans of Ensure. Shawn looks disgusted, but he doesn't fight Cory over it. He pops the top open and takes his pill with the nutritional substitute. Then, making sure Cory is watching, he drinks the remainder of the can.

"Good boy," Cory applauds.

"Blech." Shawn gives a disgusted little shiver. Then he turns to him, distraction gone and the panic returned to his face. "Will you please come with me?"

"Aw, I don't know, Shawnie. I don't know if that's my place."

"No, I know. Just...maybe you can keep me company on the train? And then wait for me while I meet her?" Shawn gives him a look that can be described as nothing short of absolutely desperate.

It's going to be an hour long meeting, with Anna and both lawyers present. As Cory considers it, he thinks it might be good for Shawn to have an ally waiting for him afterward. If it goes badly, Cory really doesn't want him making his way home alone. "Okay," Cory gives in.

"Oh, god, Cory, thank you. I was really hoping you'd come with. I think...I think maybe this'll be good."

"Well, let's just work on getting you dressed first. Okay, buddy?" Cory rests his hand on Shawn's bare shoulder. He can feel his pulse jumping through his skin.

Shawn closes his eyes for a long moment and when he opens them, he smiles. "Yeah. Good plan."

* * *

Cory is impressed at how quickly the Xanax seems to have a reaction. Within twenty minutes, Shawn's hands are no longer shaking and he is visibly calmer. He is able to shave without slicing himself up and even puts that extra bit of effort into styling his hair, making it tousled just so. As he changes his clothes for the second time and puts on a spritz of cologne, it occurs to Cory that Shawn has no idea how to prepare for a playdate with his daughter. Instead he's getting ready the only way he knows how to, as if preparing for a date. This makes Cory smile.

Maybe it's just his imagination, but Shawn's color seems to improve right before him; he looks significantly less deathly, his eyes and smile brighter. As they head out to the PATH train, Cory is feeling optimistic. Perhaps this day will go well after all.

The train ride out to Jersey City is less inspiring of confidence. Shawn is not the trembling, babbling wreck he was at the apartment, but he is clearly still struggling to keep his nerves in check. He doesn't say much, just stares out the window and works to keep his breathing steady. He is clutching a stuffed alien-monster creature thing he picked up earlier in the week in a fit of positivity about the whole situation. He's asked Cory three times if he thinks it is a stupid gesture, a weird toy to give a little girl, too babyish a toy for a six-year-old. Cory assures him that no, it's cute, it's a sweet gift and, if Sadie is Shawn's kid at all, she'll probably love it.

Then they arrive at the McDonalds where the meeting will take place. Cory stands with him out front, preparing to leave him and return in an hour. All Shawn's good color has gone. Cory puts his hands to the sides of Shawn's face, turns his head up so that he has no choice but to look at him.

"Shawnie, it's going to be okay. She's just a six-year-old girl. Like Morgan was. You like kids. You'll be fine with her. You're just gonna go in there, let your lawyer do the talking to Anna, buy the kid a Happy Meal, and get to know her a little. And when it's all over, I'll be right here."

Shawn's eyes remain fixed on Cory's. They look more crystal-blue than they have ever looked. He takes a deep breath, lets it out. Behind him, Cory sees a woman in a gray suit emerge from Mercedes.

"Your lawyer's here," Cory tells him and Shawn turns to look at Sheila and acknowledges her with a little wave.

He turns back to Cory. "Okay," he says.

"Okay?"

"Okay. I'll see you in a hour."

Cory gives Shawn's hand one last squeeze, then lets him go. He watches as Shawn falls in line behind Sheila and follows her into the restaurant, clutching the alien-monster stuffy in one white-knuckled hand.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** _So, here are the last two chapters of Two Roads Diverged (11 and 12). I want to sincerely thank everyone who has been reading and especially those who've taken the time to review. Your comments have meant a lot to me and have definitely helped me maintain momentum on this story._

_Please do let me know what you think as this story wraps up. Anything you feel worked or didn't work especially well? Stuff you'd like to see more of? I've enjoyed writing in this story's universe and am thinking about some ideas for a sequel, so if there's anything in particular you'd like to see (or not see), do let me know. I'm open to hearing a lot of ideas. _

_Okay, well, thanks again for reading/reviewing. You guys are awesome. I hope you enjoy the finale of Two Roads Diverged._

* * *

"She's so beautiful." Shawn is curled up against the train window, eyes glued to his phone. Sheila had snapped a couple pictures for him, of him and Sadie together, and he just keeps scrolling through them.

Cory smiles. "She is."

"So beautiful. God..." Shawn has been practically dancing on air since he left the McDonalds, barely aware of anything else around him. Cory had to lead the way to the station, remind him to get out his metro card, guide him into the seat so he didn't just topple over once the train started moving.

He turns to Cory now with that same dazed look of wonder on his face. "And she's smart, too. And funny. She's a really funny kid."

"So, you're saying you liked her?" Cory teases.

Shawn takes him seriously, though. "Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess I was kind of worried that I might not. You know, not that I wouldn't like her, but that I wouldn't feel...anything. But the minute I saw her...God, Cory. It's the most amazing feeling..." He leans back against the window again and sighs. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For making this happen. I wouldn't have this if it wasn't for you."

"Oh, sure you would. It would've just taken you a little longer to come to your senses."

Shawn doesn't say anything more. He just takes Cory's hand in his and squeezes it for the rest of the trip, scrolling over and over through the pictures with his other hand. Cory cannot recall another time when Shawn has ever looked so happy and content. A little pang of jealousy hits Cory then, but he pushes it away and concentrates on being glad for him.

* * *

Back in the city, Shawn insists that they must go to lunch, surprising Cory somewhat. He figured Shawn would be far too nerve-wracked still to want to eat, but Shawn looks at him like he's crazy when he hesitates, so Cory quickly acquiesces. He doesn't mind so much, anyway. The hours that have passed since he arrived at St. Luke's last night have felt like an incredible gift of bonus time with Shawn, as emotionally exhausting as those hours have been. He wants to stretch them out as long as possible.

At the restaurant, Shawn babbles about all the things he and Sheila have been discussing, the different types of custodial arrangements he might pursue, different ways that Anna and her lawyer might counter back. As he talks, he wolfs down spring rolls and coconut soup, barely pausing to take a breath.

"Hey, hey," Cory warns him at one point, "Slow down. You're gonna make yourself sick."

Shawn pauses, half a bite into another spring roll, swallows and takes a deep breath. "You're right."

"Not that it's not good to see you hungry, though."

"I'm _not_ hungry," Shawn says, "I just can't fuck around anymore. I gotta get it together."

"Uggh," Cory sighs in disgust, "I've been telling you that for a week and a half."

"Yeah, well," Shawn says as their entrees arrive, "I'm kind of an idiot."

"I've heard that."

They eat in companionable silence for a while. Cory isn't crazy about his pad Thai, but he plods through it anyway, not wishing to disturb Shawn's momentum. Unlike the majority of the meals they've had together this past week and a half, Shawn does not pick at or play with his food, making an elaborate show of giving it attention without actually eating much of it at all. Instead, he approaches this meal with a deliberate, methodical dedication. Scoop, bite, swallow. Scoop, bite, swallow. There's no masking that it's an effort, but it's an effort Shawn finally seems willing to make. Cory supports the effort by doing everything not to disrupt it.

Eventually, though, Shawn takes a breather and switches his attention to Cory. "So, I haven't even asked you yet," he says, twirling noodles idly around his fork, the habit of playing with his food perhaps too ingrained, "How have things been this week?"

"You mean before I got called in the middle of the night to spring you from the emergency room?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, just peachy. We're barely talking."

"That's not good," Shawn says.

"No, I don't think it is." Cory shovels a forkful of chicken and noodle into his mouth angrily then continues, "She's also stopped the fertility treatments. Before she even came out here."

Shawn puts down his fork. "That's really not good."

"No. It's not. She didn't even talk about it with me first. She just decided to stop. Like it's just her decision."

"Well, it is her body."

"I know that. But, I mean, she just acts like I'm not a part of this at all. Do you know what that feels like?"

Shawn raises one eyebrow and Cory immediately realizes what a stupid thing he has just said. He feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment and a wave of self-loathing floods over him. His problems have always felt so petty and unimportant in comparison to Shawn's dramas. The old guilt at complaining when he has so much less to complain about hits him and he is annoyed by its familiarity. He wants to complain right now, dammit, and feel sorry for himself. Why can't he feel sorry for himself a little bit without always feeling like he doesn't have a right to?

"Anyway," Cory continues, more irritated now, "It's not good." He begins stabbing at the chicken on his plate violently.

"Well, you know," Shawn says, taking the fork away from Cory, "If you needed some time apart for, like, a cooling off period, or something, you could always stay with me."

Cory glares at him. "Really, Shawn? You really think that's a good idea?"

"I don't see why not. You apparently have no other friends."

Cory snatches his fork back from Shawn. "I have friends."

"Would Eric let you stay with him? Or you could go back home to your parents for a bit. I'm sure they'd put you up."

"Stop it. I'm not running away. God. I'm allowed to have a fight with my wife without it immediately meaning I need a new place to live."

"Okay," Shawn gives a falsely casual shrug and returns his attention to the hard work of eating, "I was just trying to help. I wasn't trying to seduce you."

"Well, it would be a lot more believable if you weren't playing footsie with me while you did it."

Shawn grins. "You knew that was me, huh?"

"Who else would it be? You're the only one at the table."

Shawn laughs and Cory's irritation fades away. It's such a relief to see Shawn happy. So what if Cory isn't? What does it matter?

"So, tell me some more about Sadie," Cory says, "What'd you guys talk about?"

Cory doesn't think he will ever get tired of seeing Shawn's face light up like that.

* * *

But it's hard. It's always been hard to see Shawn happy when Cory is not. It's like the balance of their universe gets thrown off a little. It's not that Cory begrudges Shawn his happiness, really. It's just that when Cory's happy, he's simply happy and that's it, but when Shawn's happy, he's happy in a way that makes it seem like no one has ever before experienced a state of happiness quite like this. Maybe because for Shawn genuine happiness has always been so rare and fleeting that he appreciates it more, experiences it to its fullest for as long as it lasts. Cory's taken being happy for granted, he supposes. Most of his life there really wasn't any reason not to simply expect it. And then it slipped away some time during these last eight years and he never even noticed. But seeing Shawn happy-and experiencing little moments of happiness with him this past week and a half-makes it all the more clear to Cory what has been missing. It feels like there's a great big gaping hole in his heart where something should be. And it's hard to go around knowing there's a hole in you, especially when accompanied by someone who is a walking reminder of what you desire.

As they head toward the Upper West Side and Jim's beautiful apartment that Cory has come to hate, neither of them says much. Once again they both feel the clock ticking down. There'll be no more bonus time now. As they get closer, Cory feels a need to make things normal somehow, just to undercut the overwhelming sense of dread.

"So, what are your plans tonight?" he asks.

Shawn pushes his hands a little deeper into his coat pockets. "I'm actually seeing my sponsor tonight."

"For NA?"

"Only sponsor I got. Jeez, how bad off do you think I am?" Shawn's smiling, though, and not really offended. He continues, "Yeah, it's just...it's been a while since I touched base with him and with everything that's been happening...well, it's probably good I see him. Just to talk or whatever. I should probably start attending some meetings again too. It's time to get my life back on track."

"I still got your Xanax, you know," Cory says, trying to be helpful.

"Yeah. Keep it, will you? I don't want it around."

"Sure." Cory glances at him as they continue to walk, "You gonna be okay, Shawnie?"

Shawn nods forcefully. "I am. One day at a time, and all that. Besides, I gotta think about Sadie now, before anything else. I don't think I'm allowed to fuck-up anymore after this."

Maybe it's the cold wind putting color in his cheeks, or the fact that he's finally had a couple of good meals in a row, or just his general upbeat mood, but Shawn does not look to Cory like the same person he checked out from the hospital less than 24 hours previously. Even with the little bandage covering up the stitches on his temple, he looks...stronger. He looks healthier. For the first time Cory can remember, he believes Shawn when he says he's going to be okay.

"How 'bout you?" Shawn asks.

"Me? Oh, I'll be fine. I'm always fine."

"No, you're not. I worry about you, Cory. I feel like I'm the only person who's ever looking out for you."

Cory is puzzled by this assertion, that _Shawn_ would think that _Cory_ was the one who never had anybody looking out for him."What are you talking about? I've always had my family, Topanga, Feeny..."

"Yeah, but none of them know you like I know you. And they always seem to believe you when you say everything is fine, like nobody thinks you're complicated enough to have real problems. That always pissed me off."

There is genuine anger on Shawn's face, a fierce protectiveness Cory's never seen. As he contemplates this, he realizes they've passed where they should have turned for Jim's building. He doesn't say anything, though-he's pretty sure Shawn's aware of this. Cory just keeps walking with him, trying to look back on their lives with the idea of Shawn as his protector. For his whole life, he's only ever thought of it as the other way around. But there were lots of times now, looking back, where he should have seen it. And, the more he thinks about it, there were probably a lot instances Cory never even knew about. Shawn is a master of behind the scenes machinations. God, Cory has been so oblivious to everything his whole life.

Shawn leads Cory off the sidewalk and into a park and they walk a bit without talking until Shawn takes a seat on a bench. Cory sits down beside him and they look out over the late January gray of the Hudson River. The wind is brisk and cruel, but Shawn doesn't seem interested in moving away from it. And Cory doesn't feel interested in moving away without Shawn. So he folds his hands in his lap, resigns himself to the cold, and gazes out over the water.

"Is that the watch?"

Cory glances at Shawn and then looks down at his own hands. In the space between his coat sleeve and his glove, his watch is visible, the watch Shawn gave to him for Christmas thirteen years ago. The face is scuffed and scratched, the watchband replaced twice now, but Cory has never once considered getting a new watch.

"There hasn't been a day since I was sixteen that I haven't worn it," Cory says.

"Just habit, or sentimentality?"

"A bit of both, I guess."

Shawn nods and they fall silent again. It is bitter cold, but Cory doesn't care. He would freeze to death beside Shawn if it meant their time together today could last a little longer. Eventually, Shawn speaks again:

"If you never had to worry about money again, but you still had a job you liked and found interesting, and you lived in a vibrant, amazing city, with real seasons, but paid workers to shovel your sidewalks, and you shared a pretty nice apartment with a devastatingly handsome, charming, sexy guy who loved you more than life itself and was happy to fuck your brains out on a frequent basis, a guy you already knew your parents liked, and you maybe even got a chance to play stepdaddy to an adorable little girl say, two weekends a month, do you think you would be happy?"

Cory lets himself picture that, all the elements Shawn has just described. His heart aches with longing. Then he shakes his head sadly. "It just can't work like that."

"Why not?"

"It's too late. It just can't."

"Okay," Shawn says in resignation and stands up, offering Cory his hand. He has no gloves on, of course. "Let's get you back to your real life, then."

They walk back to Jim's building, side by side without talking. Before Cory enters the lobby, though, Shawn pulls him aside under the building's awning. He has a look of determination on his face, underscored by his ruddy cheeks and nose. His eyes are lit up like two gas flames.

"Do you remember," he says, "how I earned the money to pay for that watch? When you got me the job working for the mob?"

"I didn't get you that job. You took it from me, remember?"

"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, do you remember that poem we were reading in class then, the one we talked about that night?"

"What, the Robert Frost poem?"

"Yeah. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood-"

"Yeah, yeah. I know the poem. Everybody knows that poem. And I remember you talking about it then. You thought you were at a crossroads, choosing between a life of crime and something better."

Shawn's expression softens slightly. "You remember that?"

"Of course I do." Cory distinctly remembers being surprised at the time by Shawn seeing a metaphorical connection between his own life, his own insecurities and fears about his future, and a poem from English class. He remembers thinking, not for the first time, that Shawn was a lot more thoughtful and sensitive than people gave him credit for.

"Well...well that's what that whole poem's about, right? So many times in your life you're faced with these decisions that, half the time, you don't even realize are important. But things could go one way or they could go another. I could have gone on working for the mob, ended up at the bottom of a lake eventually, or I could have gotten out while I still could, gone home and spent the holiday with your family. I took the road back to your house. Right?"

Cory nods. Shawn's fervor is unnerving as he continues. "College? I could have kept thinking I wasn't good enough to go to college, stayed on with my job at the photo studio, probably still be there today, still earning $10 an hour and living with roommates, drinking my life away. But I chose the other road. I went to college. Didn't finish or graduate, but I went and learned that I could do it. I was good enough to do just fine in college."

"Sure. Everybody told you that."

"Yeah, but I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe it until I took that chance and saw for myself that it wasn't so scary, that it really was something I was capable of doing. That I wasn't dumb anymore."

"You were never dumb."

Shawn ignores him and continues talking, determined to make whatever point it is he's trying to get across. "What about Angela? I could have been selfish and asked her to stay, gotten married at twenty, probably divorced by twenty-two and hating each other. I chose the other road, even though it meant I was alone and everybody was gonna feel sorry for me and treat me like the saddest guy in the world. And she could have stayed, could have finished college, we probably both would've finished college together if she'd stayed. But she chose the other road. She wanted to see Europe and it ended up changing her whole life. She's married, she has kids, she plays second fiddle to Major Moose. And I dropped out of college to follow you."

Shawn shakes his head quickly, then, as if shaking away the memory of Angela and his frustration with her life and whatever residual anger he still feels about what happened between them. When he looks back at Cory again, his expression has softened a bit. There is still an intense _need_ to make Cory understand, but the desperation has lessened some.

"That night in the hospital," he says, "when I woke up with my head broken open? I could have said 'fuck it' and gone right back to what I was doing. I could have done that and I would've been dead in six months, I guarantee you. And at that point in time, I wouldn't have cared. But something stopped me. Something told me to take the other road. And it was _hard_. Admitting I had a problem and asking for help and starting over...that was one of the hardest things I ever did."

His voice lowers to nearly a whisper as he reaches what seems to be the last leg of his speech.

"And Sadie? Cory, I almost gave up the chance to have her. But you stopped me. You showed me there was another road I was too scared to even let myself see. I have a daughter, Cory. An awesome, amazing, beautiful little girl. And she's gonna be in my life. Because of you. You told me I'd be crazy not to take that other road. And I'll never in a thousand, million years be able to thank you enough for that. But I'm gonna try. And right now? Right now, I'm trying to do that. I want to do for you what you did for me. I want to show you that there _is_ another road. It's there if you want it. I just need you to know that it's there for you to take. It didn't go anywhere. The road's still there."

Shawn kisses Cory then, kisses him as if he's sucking the life out of him, storing it up in a bottle to call his own. As their mouths part, Shawn gazes downward, his eyelashes short and dark, obscuring his eyes from Cory's view.

"I'm not gonna make this decision for you," Shawn says evenly, "I just want you to know that there _is _a decision to make. You're standing at the two roads. You get to choose all over again. And no matter which way you decide to go...look at that watch and know that you're not alone. I'm with you no matter what. I'm here and I'm not running anymore."

Cory cannot bring himself to speak. He watches as Shawn stands up straighter, gives him a brave smile, and then turns on his heel to leave. His figure grows smaller as his moves away, then he is lost in the crowd of busy pedestrians.

* * *

Inside Jim's apartment, Cory is surprised to find that Topanga still has not returned. Surely her lunch date should have ended by now. Perhaps she decided to do some shopping afterward? He sends her a quick text and then pours himself a glass of wine. Jim has a substantial wine selection, even a special fridge just for keeping white wines the perfect temperature. Cory helps himself to a bottle of Pinot Grigio and says to the empty apartment, "Thanks, Jim."

He sits himself on one of the plush sofas and drinks a glass. He gets a text from Topanga:

_Lunch turned into drinks. I'll be home for dinner._

Cory pours himself a second glass and stares at his phone. Then, not sure why, he goes to his contacts and dials up his mom.

Amy answers, cheerful and glad to hear from him as always, and they chat about nothing important for a few minutes. She tells him about his dad taking the car in for an emissions test, Josh getting a part in the school play, Amy's contemplation of taking on a fundraising project for Josh's school. Cory listens to all of it, feeling warm and safe. He really does have the best family a guy could have hoped for. And great parents. The older he gets, the more he understands and appreciates this.

"Hey, Mom," he says as they reach a lull in all the news from back home, "Did you ever think I would turn out different than I did?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I mean, did you and Dad...did you ever think...with me and Shawn...I don't know what I'm trying to say..."

"Do you mean did we think you were gay?" She says this so sweetly and delicately that Cory almost laughs.

"Yeah," he says, surprising himself, "Yeah. That's what I mean."

Amy laughs a little. "Well, sure. I think we all thought that for a while. But then you had Topanga and..."

"Did you ever think that maybe I was fooling myself? With Topanga?"

There is a long pause on the line. Cory takes the opportunity to take a big gulp of the Pinot Grigio.

"Sweetheart, what are trying to say?"

"I don't know," he sighs, "I'm not trying to say anything. I'm just...I'm trying to figure some things out."

"Honey, where's Topanga?"

"Out."

"All right..."

"I just love him so much, Mom."

"We all love Shawn."

"Yeah, I know, but...I think this is different. I think it's always been different." Cory sets down his wine glass and watches the legs dripping down from the rim back into the goblet. Somebody told him once that you can tell good wine from the cheap wine because it has these "legs."

"Cory, honey, are you all right?"

"No."

"Oh, sweetheart..."

"I think my marriage is done."

"Don't say that. Cory, talk to Topanga. She-"

"I don't think it ever should've happened in the first place. That's what I'm trying to say. I think I've been fooling myself for a very long time. Mom, I've been so unhappy for so long."

Amy's tone is soft and sad. "I know you have."

"You do?"

"Of course I do. I've been worried about you. Every time I've seen you these past few years, you've been so...shut down. You never used to be like that. I thought maybe with a baby it would be different..."

Suddenly, Cory finds tears coming to his eyes. "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"I've been in love with Shawn as long as I can remember."

There is silence. Then he hears Amy sigh. "Well, I know he loves you back."

"What?"

"Cory, that boy's been in love with you your whole life. I could see it in the way he always looked at you. I used to feel so sorry for him when the three of you would go out. I just...I didn't think you felt the same way. I thought that's what must have happened when you guys had that falling out, that you finally realized how he felt about you and...you didn't feel the same way. "

Cory can't help himself. He starts to laugh. All the stress and fear and tension that have been building in his shoulders melt into hysterical giggles. "Shit," he mutters to himself, "Oh, shit..."

"Are you all right?" Amy asks. He can hear the alarm in her voice. He can't imagine what she must be thinking.

He nods, then remembers she can't see him. "Yes," he assures her, trying desperately to compose himself, "I've just...I've been so scared for so long. Mom, I've been pretending to be something I'm not since I was fourteen years old."

There is another long pause. He can almost hear her composing herself. "We all just want you to be happy, sweetheart. And you know we love Shawn."

Cory just stares down into his glass in amazement. In the span of three minutes, the entire narrative of his life has changed. It is terrifying and wonderful and still more terrifying. He drains his glass and sighs, unnerved, "I love you, Mom."

"We love you too." Her concern is audible. Cory can picture her standing in the kitchen, the exact worried expression that must be on her face. "Are you going to be okay?" she asks.

He sighs. "Yeah. I don't know if I'm going back to California, though."

There is a long pause as the meaning of this sinks in. Then Amy puts on a calm, reassuring tone. "Well, you do what you feel like you need to do. We'll...we'll support you no matter what."

"Okay. I'll call you soon." Cory ends the call and sits back into the sofa, stares into his empty glass of wine. Then he sets the glass down on the coffee table and glances at his watch. Carefully, he unbuckles it and slips it off his wrist. He turns it over to look at the inscription. The inscription has faded over years of wear, but if he turns it to catch the light, he can just make out the words.

_To my best friend Cory_

He has worn those words for years against his skin. Every day unfailing, even when he tried not to think about it, even when he thought he had forgotten, those words were there. He was not alone. And he is not alone now. His heart is pounding, but this knowledge is comforting.

He hears footsteps out in the hall, then a key in the door. Topanga comes in, gives him a little wave before she stops to take off her coat. He gives her a wave back. Then she comes around the sofa and sits down across from him.

"We need to talk," he says.

She nods. "I know."


	12. Chapter 12

Cory stares into her sad green eyes and feels his heart pounding with nervousness and fear and guilt. She is beautiful, always has been. And the familiarity of her, knowing exactly what every part of her body feels like, exactly what she will look like at any given time of day in any situation, makes this so much more terrifying. He is about to dismantle everything that they have shared, everything that she has known since they were fourteen years old.

"Cory," she says, startling him by speaking first, "I had a really interesting lunch with Jon and David today. That's why it ended up going so long."

"Oh?" His brain has frozen in confusion. Why is _she_ doing the talking? And talking about lunch with her friends? What does that have to do with anything?

"Did you know that, before he met Jon, David was married? To a woman?"

"Um...no. No, I didn't." What is she talking about this for?

"Well, he was. I never knew that either. She was his high school sweetheart."

"But Jon and David are gay."

Topanga looks at him like he is a moron. "Yes. That's the point."

"What point?"

Topanga sets her jaw. He can see her trying to gather together patience. She takes his hands in hers and speaks slowly, like one would do to someone who doesn't understand English that well. "Cory. David was gay, but he was in denial about it. He dated girls and he married a woman. Then he accepted that he was lying to himself, and to everyone, and he got divorced. And now he's with Jon. And his ex-wife is remarried and now they're all much happier."

Cory's head is pounding. Maybe it's the wine. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I spent a lot of time talking with David about this today. Because of what's been going on. And it helped. It helped to know we're not the first people this has happened to. It made me feel a lot better, actually."

"What are you talking about?"

Topanga lets go of his hands and sits back with a frustrated sigh. She stares at the ceiling and shakes her head. "Cory. I'm not some naive little girl anymore."

"You're the smartest person I've ever met."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I wasn't a sheltered girl who was really happy to believe what she wanted to believe. Because how could our relationship possibly be anything else but a perfect one?"

"Topanga..."

She sits up, takes his abandoned wine glass, and pours it full again. She sips deeply before she continues. "I think for a long time I knew something was up. But when we were all together, I told myself you guys were just...really close. I was definitely fooling myself, but I also think I just didn't know any better. How could I have? And then he was gone and it wasn't an issue anymore. Then the other night at dinner, I saw the way you looked at him and suddenly it all made sense. How unhappy you've been, how it's just like you've been sleepwalking for years, how you have no passion or drive anymore, about anything...then you go to New York, you meet up with him again and suddenly you're all happy and engaged in life? I saw the way you looked at him, the way you got jealous when he paid more attention to me than you. And it made complete sense. You've been in love with him your whole life."

Cory just stares at her, open-mouthed, unable to form words. Of course she would figure it out. Of course she would decide that something had to be done about it before he even got a chance to. She has always been two or three steps ahead of him. But now it has been said out loud between them; it has been made real. And he has no idea what to do.

She looks at him sadly. "Am I off-base?"

He shakes his head. "No."

She takes a deep breath and sips more wine.

"Topanga, I love you. I've always loved you."

She nods. "I love you too. Even though I hate you right now. But the truth is, I deserve to be with someone who loves me as much as I need them to. It's not like I don't have the opportunity to meet men who appreciate me. I'm successful, smart, funny, and beautiful. You have no idea how many advances I've turned down over the years. No idea. But I've always been faithful to you. I don't know if you have-I don't think I _want_ to know-but I have. And now I think it's time I found someone who can truly appreciate me."

"Oh, god," he murmurs, "Oh, god..."

She gulps more wine and waves a hand in the air. "Shawn aside...Cory, things have not been good for a long time."

"I know."

"And I want to have kids, but not in the wrong situation. You'd be a great dad, a _great_ dad. But that's not enough. I know what it's like to grow up in a house with parents who don't love each other, who can't love each other enough. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"I love you."

She looks so sad. "I know, but, Cory? I need you to leave."

He is startled. "Is...is this it?"

"What's the point of going on from here?" She turns away from him but he can see her anger just before she does. God, she's trying hard to be reasonable and sensible. She is a better person than pretty much anyone he's ever met.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry for all of it."

"Please go."

Trembling, he climbs to his feet, gets his things, and leaves. As he closes the apartment door behind him, he can hear something shatter inside. She's thrown the wine glass across the room.

* * *

Cory walks down the streets of Manhattan blindly for a long time that night, dragging his suitcase behind him. He is in shock at all that has just happened in the last few hours. He feels removed from himself, just a body shuffling along, his mind and feelings left behind somewhere. He sees everything in front of him-cars and cabs and people and signs and restaurants and shops and advertisements-but it all seems blurry.

His marriage is over. He has walked out on his wife. He's told his mother he is gay. He _is _gay. He has slept with a man, with his best friend, with _Shawn _and he loved it. It felt right for the first time in his life. But right now nothing feels right. Everything feels strange and scary and unknown. He has left behind everything he knew to be his life. He can think of absolutely nothing that is as it was before he stepped off that plane at JFK.

Eventually, he finds himself near Shawn's apartment building. Seeing the diner, the corner store where they bought groceries, the curb where they got out of a cab just the night before, brings a sense of substance back to him. This is what it is all about. With clarity and purpose, Cory heads into the building and faces the doorman, a crooked smile plastered on his face.

Only Mr. Hunter is not home. Cory checks his watch, _the_ watch. It's after ten. He has the doorman call up to make sure. No answer.

Cory thanks him, asks to leave his suitcase, and heads back out to the sidewalk. He goes to the diner and orders pancakes. He isn't hungry, but he eats them anyway. He thinks about Shawn forcing himself to eat the cheeseburger last night, the pad Thai this afternoon. Is this what it feels like for him? Like every bite is just one step closer to being sick, but you know you've got to keep going anyway? It's awful.

Around 11:30, he returns to the doorman. Mr. Hunter is still not in. The doorman, who's come to know Cory over the past week and a half, takes pity on him, offers to let him hang out in the lobby and wait. So Cory does. He takes a seat near the elevator, sets his bag down beside him and texts Shawn.

_I'm at your building. Where are you?_

He checks his phone obsessively for the next hour, but no reply comes. By now it's after midnight. He asks the doorman if he can just let him up to wait in Shawn's apartment, but the doorman shakes his head. It's against the policy. Cory thanks him anyway, checks his phone again (no message, no missed call, no nothing) then heads back out to the street. He tries to call Shawn but gets his voicemail. He leaves a pathetic message. He calls again, gets voicemail again, and hangs up before it starts to record. He sends him another text.

_Is everything all right? Where are you?_

He heads into the corner store and purchases a bottle of whiskey. He stands in the alley between Shawn's building and the one next door and, like a hobo, drinks from the paper bag. _What the hell have I done?_

Everything. Everything is gone, just like that. One stupid week and his whole life as he knows it is over. And Shawn's not even here. He's not reliable, he can't be counted on, he's an asshole who operates on instinct and never thinks about anyone else. He's probably out somewhere destroying himself. Because that's what he does. It doesn't matter if that kills Cory, doesn't matter if it breaks his heart. It doesn't matter that Shawn is all Cory has left. Shawn does what Shawn does and Cory's a fucking idiot if he thought that'd changed. Cory's a fucking idiot no matter what, really. That's the thing that's stayed the same, right there: Cory Matthews is fucking idiot.

He calls and texts Shawn a dozen more times, each message progressively more unhinged and angry. He calls him names, tells him exactly what he thinks about him at this moment in time, and also begs him to be all right and be safe.

At some point, he wanders back into the lobby, takes a seat on the bench by the elevator. But the doorman-who looks oddly concerned now-tells him he can't stay there, tells him he is drunk. Cory argues that he's not drunk and that the doorman is a presumptuous ass, but he's finding it very hard to keep the doorman in his view. The doorman keeps listing from side to side. Then Cory realizes he's the one listing from side to side.

"What have I done?" he begs the doorman to tell him, "What the hell I have I done?"

But the doorman is kind, so kind. He leads Cory into a storage room filled with packages and boxes of cleaning supplies. There's a little couch back there and the doorman sits Cory down on it. He gets him a ginger ale from a mini fridge and a little plastic garbage can. Cory isn't sure what the garbage can is supposed to be for, then he throws up into it and realizes its purpose. And then he passes out.

* * *

"Cory? Cory, can you hear me?"

It hurts to move his eyes. When he manages to open them-oh, god it hurts-Shawn is looking down at him, lit from behind like an angel in a Renaissance painting.

"Hey, babe," Shawn says softly, "What are you doing here?"

Cory struggles to find his voice. "Are you dead, Shawnie?"

"Nope," Shawn says, "But _you_ look like you're half-way there."

"What time is it?"

"Seven, seven-thirty. Something like that. Ups-a-daisy," Shawn starts to lift Cory from the couch, but Shawn's not as strong as he used to be and the doorman scrambles to help him. Together they get Cory up to his feet, but he's not at all steady on them.

"Help me bring him up?" Shawn asks the doorman.

He nods and together they walk Cory to the elevator and up to the apartment. Cory says nothing, his mind like a block of cheese, just stumbles along where they lead.

"Bathtub," Shawn says when they get inside and the doorman helps him carry Cory into the bathroom and drop him somewhat awkwardly into the empty tub.

"Thanks, Viktor," Shawn says, "I owe you."

"No problem, Mr. Hunter." The doorman throws Cory one more incredulous look and heads out.

When he is gone, Shawn kneels down and starts unbuttoning Cory's shirt and undressing him. It's only then Cory realizes he's in his street clothes.

"Where's my coat?"

"You puked on it. Viktor's gonna send it to the cleaners."

Cory remains still, contemplating this as Shawn continues to undress him. He doesn't shift or help at all as Shawn yanks Cory's now-unbuttoned shirt from behind his back, or pulls his undershirt over his head. As Shawn removes Cory's shoes and tosses them by the toilet, some memory of last night comes back to Cory and he is angry.

"Where were you?" he asks Shawn.

"Last night?" Shawn undoes Cory's belt buckle and leads it out of his belt loops.

"Yeah, last night."

"I stayed over with Roger. He didn't think I should be alone."

"Who's Roger?" Cory is resolutely not helpful as Shawn tries to pull his pants off him.

"My sponsor." He gets the pants off with a second hard tug and tosses them on the floor.

"Is he also your lover? Did you fuck his brains out?"

Shawn stands up and walks over to the faucet. "No, he's my sponsor. What's the matter with you? Does Topanga know you were here last night?"

"Why didn't you answer any of my calls?"

"Did you call?" Shawn starts running the water and Cory pulls his feet back in fear of getting wet, which causes his head to sway and pound painfully. "I forgot my phone when I went out last night. I think I left it in the kitchen. I _hope_ that's where I left it..."

The water feels warm enough now to Shawn's liking and he pulls up the little lever, switching the water from the tub faucet to the shower. He pulls the curtain back and leaves Cory complaining loudly and inarticulately as he leaves the room.

Cory stops howling as he realizes the warm water feels good. He sinks back in the tub and closes his eyes. He tries to remember last night through the fog of his own head. It starts to come back to him in snippets. Calling his mom. The conversation with Topanga. Wandering the streets until he found his way to Shawn's building. Shawn not being there.

After a while, Shawn returns, shuts off the water and helps Cory up and into Shawn's bathrobe. Cory is a little more cooperative and he allows Shawn to lead him out to the bed. He accepts the aspirin and glass of water Shawn gives him. Then he watches passively as Shawn sits down crosslegged facing Cory, phone in his hand.

Shawn is grinning as he reads through the long series of texts Cory sent him the night before.

"Jesus, you're not even typing in English by the end here."

Cory scowls and drinks his water. It annoys him to no end that Shawn looks really well this morning, that he's in a good mood and seemingly enjoying this.

"Should I listen to the voicemails?"

Cory shrugs. That hurts his head and he promises himself not to do it anymore.

Shawn smiles as he listens to one message after another and gives Cory running commentary on them:

"Oh, I'm a skinny little shit..."

"And a selfish bastard..."

"And trailer trash, there we go. Knew that one was coming..."

"Shit, I don't even know what that was you just called me..."

"Aw, but you still want me to be okay...That's sweet, Cor..."

"A degenerate? Really? Are you gonna call me a juvenile delinquent next?"

After he listens to the last message, Shawn sets the phone down and looks at him sympathetically. "I'm sorry I wasn't here last night. I honestly wasn't expecting to see you again before you went back home."

Cory says nothing. He remains stiff as Shawn leans forward and kisses him, runs a hand down the side of his still-damp face.

"Lay down," Shawn instructs, "Sleep for a bit."

He pulls down the covers and Cory obediently crawls under them. He is suddenly overcome with exhaustion. Everything from the night before-the worry, the fear, the anger, the drinking, the illness, the anger, so much anger-seems to hit him at once. He closes his eyes, pushing it all away and settles his face into the clean sheets that smell faintly of detergent. His last thought it that Cecilia has been here, _God bless Cecilia. _He drifts off immediately.

* * *

When Cory wakes he doesn't feel remarkably better, but he does feel remotely human again. He sits up and takes in the room for a few minutes, getting his bearings. The cleaning lady has definitely been through recently-Shawn's piles of clothes and abandoned coffee mugs are no where to be seen and everything has the distinct sense of having been tidied. There is also the recognizable odor of Orange Pledge, which Cory himself always prefers to the more common Lemon Pledge. He could get used to Cecilia, he thinks, even if she is insane.

Gingerly, he throws his feet over the side of the bed, stands, and reties the belt of the bathrobe. It is a worn-out bathrobe, red striped and frayed around the cuffs. Shawn has had it as long as Cory can remember. This is oddly reassuring. Cory feels slightly protected, wrapped in the familiar.

He finds Shawn in the living room wearing headphones and working on his laptop. He doesn't notice Cory, the music so loud that Cory can hear a bit of it faintly leaking from the headphones. Cory's first thought is that Shawn is going to ruin his hearing, but he chastises himself for thinking like this. Cory is not Shawn's mother. Also, Cory is still pissed at Shawn. So let him go deaf. Then Shawn does notice him and his whole face lights up. Cory has to remind himself to stay angry at him.

"Hey, Sleepyhead," Shawn says, sliding his headphones down around his neck, "Feeling better?"

Cory doesn't answer. He just stands there and glares at him. Why doesn't this feel more monumental? Cory has blown his entire life to pieces, all to be with Shawn and Shawn is acting like it's just any old afternoon. What is wrong with him?

Shawn carefully removes his headphones and sets them down with his laptop on the coffee table. "You should eat," he says, rising, then corrects himself, "We should both eat."

Cory watches him head into the kitchen but doesn't follow. Instead he sits down on the sofa and hangs his head. He closes his eyes and allows all his misery and regret to overtake him. _What have I done? This is all wrong. _

Shawn returns shortly with a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He has been grocery shopping, at least, which Cory notes is vaguely encouraging, even if his concept of groceries and cooking seems frozen at age eleven. Cory doesn't turn it down when Shawn hands him one of the plates, though. He's suddenly very hungry.

They eat their sandwiches quietly side by side. Shawn nudges his shoulder and hip right up next to Cory's and it takes everything in Cory's power not to shove him away. He's growing increasingly incensed that Shawn has yet to acknowledge that anything important has happened at all. Is Shawn's maturity frozen at age eleven as well? How could Cory have ever believed that this would work?

"Should I call Topanga to come get you?" Shawn asks.

Cory freezes mid-bite.

Shawn shoves the last bit of sandwich in his mouth and continues talking with his mouth full. "Or are you just gonna slink back?"

He interprets Cory's lack of response as reluctance, rather than utter confusion. "Your flight leaves tomorrow, right?" Shawn continues, "You don't have a lot of time to make up before you've got, like, what-five hours together in close confinement? That won't be fun."

"Make up?" Cory finally manages to squeak.

"Well, I don't know what you fought about, but I'm sure running over here and getting drunk off your ass was probably a little bit of an over-dramatic response."

Cory just stares at him. _He has no idea._

"You're an idiot," Cory says.

Shawn laughs. "This has been established. Why am I particularly idiotic now, though?"

Cory continues to stare at him. "I ended it."

"Ended what?"

"Everything."

Shawn looks confused. Cory feels an overwhelming urge to slap him. Or kiss him. Not sure which.

"I'm here for good," Cory says, and then, knowing he's being cheesy but not caring because he has no idea how else to communicate this, he adds, "I chose the road back to you."

Shawn's implacable cool is gone. Now it's his turn to stare at Cory.

"You're not breathing," Cory points out.

Shawn catches his breath and shakes his head. "I...I don't know what to...Really?"

Cory nods. He is astounded by the series of emotions he sees passing over Shawn's face as he processes this information. There is a lifetime of hurt and fear and disbelief and betrayal and abandonment and sorrow and resignation and hope and longing that is being worked through while a new reality seeks to establish itself.

And then Shawn is tackling him, shoving him down into the sofa cushions. Cory drops his plate and sandwich on the floor as Shawn attacks him with kisses.

"Ow," Cory says, "Oh, my head..."

"I don't care," Shawn replies between kisses, "Fuck your hangover. You're really here for good. This is happening."

"It is," Cory laughs, giving in and letting Shawn kiss him as much as he wants to. For weighing next to nothing, he is heavy atop him and his bony knees and elbows are digging in all kinds of places painfully, but it doesn't matter. "This is really happening."

"All my life," Shawn murmurs, tearing open the bathrobe and placing kisses all down Cory's shoulders and chest, "All my life I wanted you."

"I wanted you too," Cory says lamely as Shawn rakes his hands over Cory's chest and rubs his face into him.

Shawn says something into his chest and Cory can't make out what it is, then he realizes he has said, "Nobody ever wanted me."

"I wanted you," Cory says firmly, pulling Shawn up to look him in the eyes, "I want you now. I want you forever. I choose you."

Shawn's eyes are glittering with tears about to happen but then he closes them and sits back, still straddling Cory. "What did you say to her?" he asks Cory evenly, "Exactly?"

Cory frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Did you tell her you're in love with me?" Shawn still does not open his eyes.

"She knows I'm in love with you. She already knew."

"Did you tell her you were leaving for good?"

"I didn't have to. She kicked me out."

A flash of pain crosses Shawn's face, but he continues, eyes still shut like a protection against whatever it is he seems to be afraid of, "Did she kick you out like 'I don't want to see you tonight' or like 'gone forever don't come back'?"

Cory sighs. "Shawn. It's over. The marriage is over. Topanga and I are over. It was very clear. To both of us."

"Yeah," Shawn says shakily, a bitter smile coming over his face, "I don't believe you." He disengages himself from Cory and paces about as far away from him as he can while staying in the same room. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks aggrieved.

"I don't know what there is to not believe," Cory says, confused and a little bit frightened, "I'm not making anything up."

"Did you actually choose any of this, or are you just here because Topanga kicked you out and you had no where else to go?"

Cory opens his mouth to defend himself, then stops. That isn't true, but he also can't say that he actively told Topanga anything either. She'd done almost all the talking. He hesitates, trying to figure out how to explain this to Shawn so it doesn't sound so bad, so it doesn't sound exactly like how Shawn thinks it went down. Cory's suddenly realizing that none of this is sounding too good.

"I knew it!" Shawn snarls after Cory has taken too long to reply, "I _knew_ it! You didn't make any of this happen! You didn't choose anything! You never do. You just let the choices happen to you. You're not here because you _chose_ me. Of course you're not. You're here because you didn't _have_ any choice!"

Cory scrambles to his feet and goes to Shawn, reaching out to take his hands, but Shawn walks backwards away from him, shaking his head, his face contorted in outrage.

"You didn't choose me," Shawn says, continuing to walk backwards around the room as Cory continues to walk toward him, "You were never going to."

"Shawnie..."

"Don't you even dare," Shawn whispers, deflecting any attempt at soothing his rage, "You're a liar. You're a fucking spineless liar."

Cory stops walking but Shawn continues backing away from him. So Cory gives up and sits down in defeat on the coffee table. "I may be spineless," he says, "But I'm not a liar."

Cory looks down at his hands as he speaks because he just can't take the sight of Shawn angry and scared anymore. "I did choose you. Before she even got home, I chose you and I knew that was what I was going to do. But then she came in and took the choice away from me before I even had a chance to speak. You know how she is...she figured it out, she understood what I wanted before I even really did. I should've seen that coming. She's always been so much smarter than me. But I didn't and I..."

"She took the choice away from you," Shawn repeats quietly.

"That's not what I mean."

"No, it is. You don't see yourself as having a choice. You're only here because you're not there. That's all there is to it."

"I'm here because I want to be."

"It's not just me or her. Why have you always thought that? Go have your own fucking life. I don't want you to be here because I'm your default option. Or, god, second place. Go take that job with Tom. Get your own place. Live your own life. You don't have to have me in it. Go back to Philadelphia. Start over there. Go back to Los Angeles for all I care. Take that job there. Go to that gay bar again and pick yourself up some nice little boyfriend. You've got plenty of fucking choices."

"I don't want my _own_ life, whatever that means. I don't want some other life. I want my life with you. I want you."

"No, you don't. You don't want me. You want safety and security and everything to be the same as it's always been. You don't have Topanga for that so you go to me."

"How is this safety and security? Shawn, I just chucked everything in my life over a cliff. Everything is gone. And now I'm saying I want to stay here. In a new city with a new job...in a relationship with a _guy_. That's pretty new too. And not just any guy. Oh, no. A guy who's hardly recognizable to me. A guy who's had this whole life I wasn't ever a part of, done and seen things I don't even want to know about. A guy who's rich and important and...well, scarily fucked-up, too. God, how many more hospital visits and addictions and secret children am I going to find out about? You gonna mention a stay on Riker's Island next? Casually let it drop that you're also three times divorced? This whole thing terrifies me, Shawnie. But I'm doing it. I'm trying to go for it. I'm taking one big fucking leap of faith and choosing you. Because that's what I want. I don't want to just live some life without you. I want you. I love you. Why the hell can't you just accept that?"

Shawn is silent and carefully expressionless throughout this entire speech. He remains standing across the room from Cory, the defiant set of his frail shoulders heartbreaking. He looks so small and so scared and is trying so hard not to look like either of these things.

"Oh, and for what it's worth," Cory adds softly, "I told my mother I was leaving Topanga for you before Topanga even came home yesterday." He looks down at his hands again and wonders if he should just go get a hotel tonight.

"You told your mother?"

Cory is startled to hear the change in Shawn's tone; the anger is not there anymore. "Yeah," Cory says, "I don't think she was all that surprised, actually."

"What did she say?" Shawn's voice is shaky and it suddenly occurs to Cory that, in coming out to his mother, he'd essentially shoved Shawn out along with him to the closest thing he has to his own parents. How did all of this get so complicated so quickly?

Cory smiles. "She said they love you a lot and they want me to be happy."

"Oh, god," Shawn says softly, and walks on unsteady feet back to the sofa, "Your parents know."

Cory doesn't know what to say to that. He turns around on the coffee table, so he is now facing Shawn. Their knees are touching, but Shawn doesn't seem to mind.

"This really is happening," Shawn says, as if addressing the floor.

Cory nods. He leans forward until Shawn looks up at him.

They gaze at each other. They are both older, battle-scarred, and weary. So much has happened in the intervening years and yet, Cory can see that they are still the same boys who played Nintendo together, who stayed up all night talking about comic books in the treehouse, and who passed notes back and forth through too many detentions to count. All of that shared past lies between them. And, looking into Shawn's eyes, seeing that spark of mischief still present in them, the pale brown freckles and the faint crows feet that now surround them, Cory cannot wait to see what lies ahead.

"You chose the road back to me, huh?" Shawn asks.

"I did."

Then Shawn smiles that beautiful smile. "Well, I think it's gonna be an interesting trip."


End file.
